Inside-Out China

A Few Anecdotes about My Hexagonal Pavilion

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

On its last day, let me end 2011 with a personal note. After two laborious years, the hexagonalpavilion (六角亭) Bob and I started in September2009 is finally finished (actually, I can only take credit for the inspiration,design and quality control; Bob is the one who built it):

To compare, here is a photo of it in the first winter:

From the beginning I racked my wits trying to come up with agood name for the pavilion. After many failed tries, the name arrived withouteffort. In December 2009, I emailed the above photo to a friend, Wang Yan, inChina. He replied:

宋人当年每起一亭，必做文以记之，如“喜雨亭记”，“黄州快哉亭记”等，皆吾所爱。但最爱者，为苏东坡“超然台记”。

In translation:

In the Song Dynasty, whenever apavilion was built, notes were written to record it. I love such notes as those for "Happy RainPavilion," "Huangzhou Pleasure Pavilion," etc, but what I lovethe most is Su Dongpo's "Notes on the Terrace of Transcendence."

Terrace of Transcendence, Shandong

I had forgotten all about it: The Terrace of Transcendence (超然台),in Shandong Province, was where the great Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo wrotehis eternal verse "Bright Moon, When Was Your Birth" (明月几时有). (Some translate the poemtitle as "When Will the Moon Be Bright," which is clearly incorrectto me as the poem itself indicates that it waswritten during a full moon.)

The word "超然," besides"transcendence," can also be translated as "detachment,","aloof," and so on. "Transcendence" seems to fit our mood the best and, onreflection, it must be more than coincidence that we live in the area where the19^th century "transcendental movement" originated. It was sitting by Walden Pond one day in 2010, forexample, that Bob wrote his letter of resignation to the company where he hadworked for two decades. (Later, when discussing the pavilion name, I asked him,jokingly, what we are transcending, and he said, "The chaos of officepolitics." In that case, I “transcended” seven years earlier than him, when I quitmy job as an algorithm developer with steady income and became a writer withtwo sleeves of clear wind (两袖清风). :-))

Looking back, my whole life seems to be a struggle betweenaspiration for some sort of transcendence and failure in achieving it. Nomatter. Don't you know a classic Chinesesaying, "Though unreachable, my heart longs" ("虽不能至，心向往之")?

Thus we settled on the name for our pavilion: 超然亭,or "The Pavilion of Transcendence."

The last touch to complete the construction requires an engravedplaque, or 匾 (bian), with the nameinscribed. I decided to use seal script(篆字) for the inscription, andeasily found an on-line generator for the three characters. But the colorcombination for the background and the characters was a bit difficult to figureout, even with computer simulation. Iasked around for opinions among Chinese friends, but they were as varied as ourown. Alas, one friend convinced us that"only black characters on a wooden background would match the meaning ofthe words."

I sent the specification for the plaque to my sister andsolicited her help to have it made in Shanghai. She took my requestseriously. A few days later, she wrote back(in translation):

At first I thought this would besimple, because on Puxi's Fuzhou Road there are all kinds of culture and artstores that make anything and everything. When I went to the store that made framesfor my paintings, however, the wood-master who has worked on this 'culturestreet' for more than 30 years told me no store makes bian (匾).

I didn't believe him, and walkedthrough the entire Fuzhou Road to look. I found several engraving shops thatmake metal or plexiglass seals. Theworkers, all young men in their 20s, had their mouths gasped in the shape ofthe question mark on hearing the word bian(匾), clueless as to what kind ofthing it is. A nice young man called the storeowner for me. The owner asked,'What is bian?' I had no choice but say, 'It is a piece ofwood engraved with words.' 'Aha,' he said, 'store sign!' I was speechless. He then said if I provided a piece of wood hecould engrave the words for me, 60 yuan a character. Well, where do I go to find the wood? Not to mention the wood for a bian requires certain machineprocessing.

I called directory informationasking where to find a store that makes bian. The operator was even more amazing. "Bian?" she said, 'you mean shoulderpole (bian dan 扁担)?'

I hadn't thought that Shanghai,the so-called international cosmopolitan center, would be so culturally ignorant.

I searched the internet with noresults. An entire day was wasted.

The next day, my sister (who lives in Pudong) went to Puxi again and randomlylooked around. When she almost gave up,she ran into an auction store, above its door hanging an antique plaque withthe inscription of "青莲阁,"looking cultured. She ran to the thirdfloor asking if anyone knew where that plaque was made, and everyone thoughther absurd. Fortunately she ran into a passerby, Mr. Dai, who said he knewwhich contractor made the plaque, and he helped to find their phone number. Thevery kind Mr. Dai also advisedher thatelm would be the best material for making a bian.

My sister then called the number Mr. Dai gave her, and founda Mr. Shen, who said he wasn't the right person and provided another number.Through that number my sister reached a Ms. Li, who told her to meet at a farplace, nearly an hour's subway ride away. It turns out Ms. Li is a Fujian migrantworker in the business of antique imitation. My sister had finally found someone who isnot a Shanghaies and knowswhat a bian 匾is.

And certainly, the bian is made of elm, just as Mr. Dai advised:

I can't wait to hang it up on the pavilion next spring.

Btw, Bob is writing a series of posts on the process of building this beautiful monster. His first post is already up here.

Christmas in Shanghai

2011-12-26T11:28:00.001-05:00

by Maple, guestblogger, December 25, 2011

[in translation，中文原文附后]

At Jing'an Temple in Shanghai

I don't know when it started, but my Chinese countrymen haveincreasingly lost feeling for traditional festivals and become more and more heatedup by Western holidays. Even economic depression and "End of theWorld" panic can't hold back Shanghai's fervor to welcome Christmas.

At a mall in Shanghai

In aplace that always leads the fashion trend and where there is no shortage offoreigners and foreign enterprises, it may not be so strange for some people totake this ride for a bit of fun, but when an entire city collectively goescrazy for a foreign holiday, it is a different matter indeed. Here is the humility that goes with Christianity—such respect for others' cultures must be an overwhelmingly pleasantsurprise to the 0.5% of the population in Shanghai that is foreign. So harmonious.

In Shanghai's Zhengda Square

Each year, when Christmas approaches, the joyful atmosphere seepsto every corner of the city like overflowing water. When nights fall, the cityis ever so gorgeous with lit-up trees, silver flowers and colorful embroideriesof light, while Christmas music incessantly drones on. Excited young peopledress exquisitely, like flowering branches vying for attention. No matter a bigdepartment store or small supermarket, no matter a bank or restaurant, nomatter a foreign-invested or domestic enterprise or even a governmentorganization, at every building's door there is a Christmas tree fully decoratedwith neon lights and bags of presents. Evensmall residential enclaves and ordinary hospitals are not spared. So what ifyou are a Buddhist or Muslim, when you go home or go to the hospital, you getto celebrate Christmas.

In Shanghai's hotel

A while ago there was a joke circulating on the internet: ina contest for the most enigmatic department on the earth, the winner is China's"relevant department" ("有关部门"). I suspect, to place Christmas trees in everycorner of Shanghai is the glorious mission of a "relevantdepartment."

In a residential enclave of Shanghai

Perhaps people so exhaust their enjoyment during Christmas, thatwhen it actually comes time for our own spring festival, the reaction from bothbusinesses and the populace is fatigued. Besides the dull red lanterns, sausage and smoked pork, plus the CCTV Gala Show that gets worse and worse every year, there is nothing else.Compared with people's enthusiasm for Christmas, spring festival no doubt iscast in the shadows.

In Shanghai's supermarket

Nowadays when commenting on something interesting,the Shanghai idiom goes, "That has some tunes" ("老有腔调的"). Is it because we Chinese are so insipid and constrainedin nature that our traditional festivals are spent with fewer and fewer tunes? Otherwise why, when the fun and relaxing foreignholidays such as Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Christmas are introduced, do we progress from fascination to enthusiastictalk to glad acceptance? As to why Halloween involves masks, whereValentine's originated or whose birth Christmas is celebrating, no one cares aslong as there are big meals to eat, discount goods to buy and colorfuldecorations to see.

But let's cut the cackle. On Christmas day, real Christiansgo to church to hear sermons, sing hymns, and read the Bible. There you will againrun into situations between laughter and tears. At the gate of the following church, for example, a bunch of Henanese sitthere begging—

On Christmas Day, beggers at a Shanghai church

Even beggers in Shanghai know today is Christmas. That addssome tunes. They must have theirsimple logic – merciful Christians probably won't refuse to give charity onthis special day. That is why theydeploy the most primitive ruse of bodily suffering: on a frigid winter day, sitting on icy cementground, wearing patched clothing and a faint smile, they languidly chant to thechurch goers: Please do something kind, bosses,please do something kind!

The foreigners pass by unfazed, but how can the fellowChinese bear it? One digs into his pocket and hands money to a begging woman. The woman takes the bills and says loudly, Thank you, you the good heart! You reallyare a living Buddha!

The Good Heart sighs looking up to the heavens, Oh my Lord!

海上圣诞

不知从何时起，国人对本土的传统节日感情越来越淡漠，对西方的洋派节日却越来越热衷。经济萧条和末日恐慌都hold不住这座城市迎接圣诞的热情。以一向走在时尚前列的上海来说，这也许并不奇怪，这里本来老外就多嘛，外资企业云集之地，凑个热闹过过洋节没啥稀奇。可整座城市为一个洋节集体疯魔还是比较少见的，这种暗合基督精神的谦卑简直让仅占人口总数千分之五左右的老外受宠若惊——这，这也太和谐了吧！

每年临近圣诞，满满的喜气就流水般渗透着这城市的每一个角落。黑幕拉下时，更是火树银花彩灯绚烂，圣曲音乐不绝于耳，兴奋的年轻人个个妆容精致花枝招展，无论是大商场还是小超市、无论是银行还是饭店、无论是外资企业还是合资企业还是国有企业甚至政府机关，门口都必然立着一颗挂满霓虹灯和礼品包的圣诞树，甚至连居民小区和普通医院都无一幸免，不管你是佛教徒还是回教徒，进小区、进医院你就得庆贺圣诞。

前段时间在流传一个段子，评比世上最神秘的组织，得第一的是中国的“有关部门”。我疑心，把圣诞树放遍上海的所有空地，就是有关部门安排的光荣任务。

大约是圣诞期间人们把所有的欢喜都用到了极致，真到了我们自己的春节时，无论是商家还是民众，反应都比较疲软，除却乏味的红灯笼外加香肠腊肉再加上一台一年烂似一年的春晚，别无它物。与人们对待圣诞的热情比起来，春节无疑是黯然失色。

上海人眼下有句惯用的话叫“老有腔调的”，是有趣有特色的意思。是不是因为中国人本性太枯燥和压抑了，以至于所有的传统节日都越过越没"腔调"，不然，我们怎会对比较有趣和放松的万圣节、情人节、圣诞节从莫名惊艳到津津乐道到欣然接受呢？

至于“万圣节”为何要带面具？“情人节”的来历是什么？“圣诞节”是庆贺谁的诞生？人们一概不管，有大餐吃、有打折商品抢，有花花世界看，这才是王道！

闲话少说，真正的基督徒会去教堂听听布道、唱唱赞歌、读读圣经，过一个真正意义上的圣诞。不曾想，在教堂，你仍然会碰到啼笑皆非的场面,例如一帮河南人坐在教堂门前乞讨。

上海的叫花子也知道今天是圣诞节。有腔调吧？

他们一定是用朴素的逻辑推断——慈悲的基督徒总不会在这个特殊的日子里拒绝施舍的。

所以他们就用了最原始的苦肉计，在寒冷的深冬，坐在冰冷的水泥地上，脸上带着似笑非笑的表情，懒洋洋地向出入教堂的信徒们机械性吟哦：行行好吧，各位老板行行好吧。

老外们比较矜持，目不斜视地走过去了，同胞们情何以堪！有人掏出票子递给一位大妈，那妇人一边接了一边朗声道：谢谢好心人，你真是活菩萨呀你！

好心人仰天长叹：喔我的主呀！

Yang Rebuts Dikötter on Famine Research

2011-12-07T10:52:00.001-05:00

[Note: I don't know either Frank Dikötter or Yang Jisheng, but I have readboth China's Great Famine (in English)and Tombstone (in Chinese), two booksI'll be reviewing.

For researchpurposes, I'm intensely interested in finding out whether Mao really said "Itis better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat theirfill," and if he did, in what context. According to Dikötter, Mao madethe speech on March 25, 1959, in a secret meeting in Shanghai, but thesource Dikötter cites in his book is "Gansu"– Gansu's provincial archive. If Dikötter can show us the complete speech ofMao that contains those words, or the complete context if they are wordsattributed to Mao by someone else, that would be a great help to allresearchers of the subject. – Xujun]

杨继绳答冯克先生对《墓碑》的评论

In Response to Mr. Dikötter's Comments on Tombstone

by Yang Jisheng

IndependentChinese Pen Center, November 16, 2011

[In translation]

Not long ago, when I heard that Mr. Dikötter'sbook on China's great famine had been published, Iwas very happy: with one more comrade researching China's great famine, I feltin my heart the consolation of not being alone. Later, when I heard his book hadreceived an award, I was again very happy, for our research field had attractedserious attention from international academic circles.

Igot to know Dikötter in 2007. I was visitingthe Chinese University of Hong Kong, mainly to make use of its variouschorographic resources for my final proofreading and correction of the Tombstone manuscript. Beijing’s Libraryon Wenjin Street also has chorographies, but does not allow open-shelf reading;one has to check out a single book a time to read, which is veryinconvenient.

One day perhaps inMay 2007, through the introduction of Prof. Cao Shuji of Shanghai JiaotongUniversity, Dikötter found me at CUHK. I told him about my research. He said, "You study about death; I studyabout survival." I thought hisangle was original. We also discussed thenumber of [starvation] deaths. I said 36 million is only an approximate number;it is impossible to find an accurate count. Later I gave a talk at a lunchmeeting on China's great famine; I remember Mr. Dikötter was also there.

Tombstone was published in May 2008 in HongKong by CosmosBooks, and it triggered unexpectedly strong reaction. Sometime later, probably in 2009, Dikötter'sassistant Ms. Zhou Xun visited me in Beijing. I gave her some information and methodsfor gathering famine data. I half joked,"With your Chinese face and pure Sichuan dialect, maybe you could sneakinto Sichuan's Provincial archives!"

Ihave not read Mr. Dikötter's book ~~(note: Mao's Great Famine has not been translated into Chinese – Xujun)~~,and can't make comments except to congratulate. But I'll have to say a fewwords in response to his comments on Tombstone.I read his comments from the October 30, 2011 issue of AsiaWeekly. This is an influentialjournal; if I don't provide a bit of the necessary response, it will bedifficult to clear up its many readers' misunderstanding of Tombstone. A few things are discussed in what follows.

1. Mr.Dikötter speaks of the causes of theGreat Famine: "This is a system or structure issue, not that of acertain person. That's the biggestdifference between my book and Yang Jisheng's." Anyone who read Tombstone knows that, from the introduction through every chapter,the book talks about the system issue; it never says the cause for the greatfamine was the problem of "a certain person." In addition, Chapter 26focuses on analyzing systematic causes of the famine, and Chapter 27 exploresthe theoretic roots of the system. I always think that, to inculpate Mao Zedongalone for all China's problems in the 30 years before Reform, such asanti-rightists, the great famine, and the Cultural Revolution, is contrary to historicalfacts, and is superficial.

2. Mr. Diköttersays, "He [Yang Jisheng] writes Mao Zedong as very bad, the CommunistParty as very good." Tombstone neither says "Mao Zedong isvery bad" nor "the Communist Party is very good," of course itdoes not say Mao is good either. Notonly are there no such words, but also no such meaning, in my book. Readers who have read Tombstone must think Mr. Dikötter remembered wrong. Tombstone just objectively writes thehistorical course as it occurred. When writing about several leaders of theParty central, the book does not give any evaluation of "good" or"bad," because that kind of simplified evaluation is not scholarlythinking, and is not scientific. Especially for such a large-scale catastrophe as the great famine, theroots are in the system, it can't be the consequence of whether a certainperson is "good" or "bad."

Speakingof Mao Zedong, I will have to point out, one piece of information Dikötter introducedto prove "Mao Zedong is bad" is not reliable. Dikötter quotes Mao assaying "It is better to let half of the people die so that theother half can eat their fill." Based on my many years of research on the greatfamine and Mao Zedong, I am positive that Mao did not say such words.

3. "He[Yang Jisheng] says Zhou Enlai is wonderful, Liu Shaoqi is wonderful, DengXiaoping is wonderful; as such this cuts apart the history of the relationshipbetween Mao Zedong and the Party." Readers of Tombstone cantestify, my book absolutely does not have any such words as Dikötter says ithas. Not even a hint of such. Tombstoneonly states historical facts and the ~~systematic~~ systemic causes that made them happen;it does not evaluate credits and faults of any particular leader. In additionto describing Mao's words and behavior, Tombstoneespecially spends many pages describing Liu Shaoqi's speeches during the GreatLeap Forward, and then states: "When I list here a series of speeches byLiu Shaoqi that led to the 'Five Winds,' it is not to say that the source of the'Five Winds' was Liu. It is also not to reduce Mao's responsibility; rather itis to illustrate that, after the criticism of 'countering rash advance,' themajority of the then Party leadership was in keeping with Mao’s attitudes and wassupportive of Mao. Among them, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai were in tune with Mao;sometimes they even spoke more radically than Mao."

4. Dikötter says,"On the so-called three-year natural disasters, in fact there weren't bignatural disasters." In fact, it is not that there weren't big naturaldisasters. There were natural disasters.To research the impact of the natural disasters on farm crops, I went to theNational Meteorological Administration five times to gather information andseek advice from meteorological experts. My conclusion: "Natural disasters occur every year; those threeyears were normal years. The cause of the Great Famine was a man-madedisaster."

5. Dikötter says,"His [Yang's] book rather emphasizes on how many deaths occurred inwhich province, which place. To use a not very appropriate word, I feel that's a bit stupid (无聊)."

Dikötter calls myresearch on each province's death numbers "stupid"; to this criticismI would rather not respond. Readers please make your own conclusion. But I dowant to make clear that, for this "stupid" thing, I indeed expendedgreat efforts. For example, I sought advice from many demographers, and had in-depthdiscussions with them. I collected nearly all foreign and Chinese demographers'research data on China's famine death figures, studied their methods, andanalyzed their calculation results. Further, I hand-copied each province'srelevant data, book by book, from the 30 books of Populationof China, drew up tables to organize the data, and then calculated the data province byprovince. Each day, I calculated thedata after work; one evening was enough for only one province. Why did I devotesuch big efforts in such a "stupid" thing? I treasure life. Behindevery figure is an array of lives from birth to death.

6. Dikötter said manytimes that, his biggest discover is that besides starvation deaths, manypeople were beaten to death. Is thishis new finding? Readers of Tombstone know this well, readers of Ms.Qiao Peihua's Xinyang Incident knowthis well, too. Both books described many cases of peasants being beaten todeath. Tombstone was published three years earlier than Mr. Dikötter'sbook. Xinyang Incident was published over a year earlier than Mr. Dikötter'sbook.

7. Mr. Diköttersaid many times that China's archives are now opened, he visited China'sinland archives and read over a thousand documents relating to the great famine,and said his book is based on the archive materials. I went to 10+ Provincial ArchiveEstablishments as well as the Central Archive, hand-copied and Xeroxed several thousandoriginal documents; the hardship I experienced is unspeakable. I had the statusof Xinhua Agency's senior reporter, and the help from many high-rankingfriends, and still I ran into lots of trouble and setbacks; some provinces didnot let me in. … As far as I know, China's famine archive is not opened. SomeArchive Establishments opened other files, but those related to the famine havea small rectangular stamp on them with the word "restricted", and readingis not allowed. Mr. Dikötter is a foreigner with distinctive exterior andlanguage, who'd have thought he could access over a thousand files of thefamine archives! There must be sometricks. If he could tell of hisexperience, it would be a great help to all scholars of China.

Yang Jisheng,October 28, 2011

-------------------------------
(Update: Thanks to Joshua Rosenzweig for pointing out that Mao's Great Famine has been translated into Chinese j.mp/rfrHtU. – Xujun)

Reviews of Deng Xiaoping in Review

2011-11-16T16:31:00.001-05:00

First a full disclosure: I have not read Ezra F. Vogel's DengXiaoping and the Transformation of China. In this post I'm going to discussthe reviews of it I've read, not the book itself.

Naturally, a question arises: are you qualified to talkabout reviews of a book when you haven't even read the book? The answer: it depends on why you readreviews in the first place. I will elaborate on the different motives later,but it suffices to say that, part of the reason I was reading reviews of Deng Xiaoping is I wanted to identify reviewerswhose writing on China I'd like to follow, and for this purpose the way theyapproach a subject I know pretty well serves as a good touchstone. My other motivation was that, though I'minterested in the book's topic, reading 928 pages would demand a lot of time,so it makes sense to first check out the reviews to see if the book is worth the time.

Below are the reviews I've read so far (h/t TheChina Beat for the links), and my evaluation of them follows. (I don'tknow any of the reviewers personally, which makes it possible for me to becandid.)

• John Pomfret's review in TheWashington Post

• Edward Steinfeld: “The ‘SteelFactory’” (Harvard Magazine)
• Jonathan Mirsky: “HowDeng Did It” (New York Times)
• The Economist: “The Great Stabliser”

• Christian Caryl: “TheSkeletons in Deng’s Closet” (Foreign Policy)

• Fang Lizhi: “TheReal Deng” (The New York Review ofBooks)

John Pomfret's review in TheWashington Post opens with fun anecdotes (two American vice presidents,across 26 years, addressing Chinese students in the same university of the samecity in Sichuan), and it provides a clear assessment on what Vogel's book doeswell and where it falls down (for the latter: "Vogel is so effusive in hispraise of Deng that the book sometimes reads as if it came straight from partyheadquarters").

However, I was taken aback by one thing: Pomfret seems to have a tendency to brand ("…Chairman Mao Zedong, who, with Hitler and Stalin, made up the trio of great20th-century tyrants," "Maomight have been a monster, but he was a monster with a back pocket,…"etc.) When Pomfret does this, myinterest wanes: once a"monster" dunce cap is placed on Mao's corpse, is there anythinginteresting left to say about him? And, by the way, a "monster" duncecap was exactly what the Red Guards ("Mao's shock troops" as Pomfret simple-mindedly calls them) used when denouncing a person. Frankly, it occurs to me brandingis an indication of narrow thinking.

Edward Steinfeld'sreview in Harvard Magazine openswith a good question ("What to make of theelfin man who in 1979 charmed Americans by donning a cowboy hat during hisvisit to a Houston rodeo, but 10 years later ordered an all-out militaryassault on unarmed protestors in his own capital?"), but proceeds withlittle insight. Steinfeld does not brand, but neither does he exhibit anycritical spirit. He basically summarizessome content of the book (and that not even from what sound to be the interesting parts). He appears to be validating Vogel's opinion that Deng ordered the Tiananmen massacre for goodreasons, i.e., the prosperity of China, and that it worked. Steinfeld seems toforget that, early on, he has criticized Mao for "the completedisregard for …catastrophic consequences" and is trying to portray Deng asthe opposite of Mao, and now he is contradicting himself. The review did notgenerate much interest in either the book or the reviewer for me.

In “HowDeng Did It,” Jonathan Mirsky is the opposite of Steinfeld: he is extremely critical of Deng Xiaoping, andhe highlights material from the book that supports his viewpoint, but is awkwardlyquiet about that which does not. While Mirsky holds an unequivocal stand towardDeng ("for most of his long career Deng Xiaoping did less forChina than he did to it"), he is a bit too vague about Vogel'sposition ("Vogel provides no evidence that Deng objected to Mao’smonomaniacal policies"; but does Vogel actually avoid the facts that Dengwas sometimes even more monomaniacal than Mao in the 1950s?), as such Mirsky mightbe giving the reader the false impression that Vogel is as critical of Deng as he is. His review comesacross as far more about the reviewer's voice than the book's.

The anonymous writer of “The Great Stabliser” in TheEconomist has a unique angle ('[Vogel]could have subtitled the book not the “transformation” but the “stabilisation”of China,…'), and teases out some interesting details from this book ("Dengthought Mikhail Gorbachev was an 'idiot' …") and another book ("In1975 he ordered the army to crack down on a Muslim village in Yunnan province,an action which resulted in 1,600 deaths including those of 300 children"). Since I don't know who the writer is, I willhave to continue to read The Economist. (Isn't that the magazine'spurpose in not providing bylines?)

Christian Caryl's “TheSkeletons in Deng’s Closet” in Foreign Policy appears to offer themost complete and level-headed coverage of Vogel's book on both its achievementsand shortcomings, and the reviewer is fair when criticizing Vogel's tendency toover-praise Deng: "Vogel is not always officious. He does mention some ofthe darker sides of the story. It's just that he is often a bit too eager totiptoe around them." Caryl also seems to give equal attention to DengXiaoping's accomplishments and "black spots," with insights and anunassuming attitude. His review has managed to raise both my interest in his future writing and in the book.

I read Fang Lizhi's “TheReal Deng” in The New York Review ofBooks (which I subscribe) mainly because I knew that Fang had personaldealings with Deng, and thought he would again bring up some interestinganecdotes like he did whentalking about Kissinger's book. He does, but his review very much disappointsme in its extremity. Fang's name was well known among my generation ofuniversity students in the 1980s China; at the time he had an unusual reputationof being both a good scientist and a good thinker. But here Fang seems to let his personal grudgesget in the way of clear thinking. While he raises a good question on why theplace of human rights is not addressed by Vogel's coverage of Deng's leadership,his conclusion that Deng's active push for the economic reform "was aimedto bring wealth to the Party-connected elite" is out of place. Such wealth is indeed a result of theeconomic reform, but to baselessly mix results and motive does not bode wellfor either a scientist or a thinker. How would Fang explain, for example,Deng's push for the rural reform? Because Deng regarded the peasants as theParty elite?

Fang's review also gives the reader the impression thatVogel's book has no merits except one: "Vogel’s materials will be veryuseful to students of elite power struggles in China." As such he managesto take an extreme position against both the book's author and its subject.

In summary, among this round of my reading, the winnersappear to be Christian Caryl in ForeignPolicy and the anonymous writer in the Economist. The two extremes, on the one end EdwardSteinfeld in Harvard Review, who isall positive about Deng and the book, and on the other end Fang Lizhi in NYRB, who is all negative about Deng andthe book, are off my radar for now. Theother two writers I'll have to watch a bit further.

Now a few more words on motives for reading reviews.

To be honest, until recently I had not given much thought tothe different motives of readers in relations to the styles of review writing,but I was inspired to do so by Jeff Wasserstrom's "Why ReadBook Reviews." In that piece, Jeff relates his thoughts to two essays:Elizabeth Gumport's "AgainstReviews" and Tom Lutz's response to it, "Odiousand Unpleasant." Jeff says that he often reads reviews to update hisknowledge of a particular topic, while skipping the books themselves. Likewise,when he writes a review he assumes most of his readers are not interested inbuying the book.

This changes my views on something that has long puzzled me: why do some long essays in The NewYork Review of Books talk about the subjectof a book at length, but speak so little to the book itself that I can't tellwhat is covered in the book and what by only the reviewer. I remember more thanonce thinking, Is that a book review?

It all makes sense now: there are readers for thosekinds of reviews. In fact we can categorize review readers by their interestsas:

- to select a book to read or to decide whether toread a particular book

- to look for help understanding or judging a bookthat has been read

- to acquire/update knowledge related to thesubject covered by a book, without necessarily wanting to read the book

- to identify good reviewers/writers/publications (like what Idid today)

There might be other motives, so feel free to provide yoursif it's not here.

China's Officialdom Novels: Translators Pay Attention!

2011-10-17T11:36:00.002-04:00

There is a rumor on the Chinese internet that, at various governmentlevels, Party bosses are requiring their secretaries and subordinates to make anew novel their "must-read." This novel, which I'm reading right now,is titled "No. 2 Boss." (By the way, the Chinese word "首长" is a bit difficult totranslate precisely in this context. I'musing "boss" for the moment. If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm all ears.)

In China's "officialdom" jargon, "No. 2boss" refers to the boss's secretary (administrative assistant), and thisnovel's protagonist is the secretary of a provincial Party chief (roughly theequivalent of a governor). Such a character's wide perspective on the Chineseofficialdom sphere, from the central government and Party apparatus to the localbureaucrats, supports a plot that is never dull.

The author, Huang Xiaoyang, apparently has intimateknowledge of government business and its daily particulars. In thistremendously entertaining and stunningly detailed novel, Tang Xiaozhou, ajournalist-turned-secretary, navigates the open strife and veiled struggles ofprovincial politics with great skill and craftiness. While more or less maintaining the tenets of basicdecency in a world full of corruption, the protagonist does not sacrifice hisown opportunities for advancement.

I have finished reading the first two volumes of the long novel,which can be bought online and in bookstores everywhere in China. The author isstill working on the third volume, and is publishing one page a day online ashe writes it. Such serial installments as a form of novel publishing in China canbe dated back to 1892, according to thisstudy. The difference today is the internet has overtaken newspapers. Iconfess that reading one new page a day of a Chinese novel has added a certainaddictive pleasure to my daily morning tea.

The political worldview expressed in "No.2 Boss,"not surprisingly, has a heavy imprint from a Chinese politician's cynicallypragmatic angle, and some of it might be unacceptable to American readers. Attimes, I also feel the book's excessive number of sex scenes undermine itsliterary quality. (I hope to address these issues more explicitly in a longerreview later.) On the other hand, the novel's realistic and meticulous portrayalof Chinese political culture has irreplaceable value to anyone who isinterested in understanding China. Nowadays,an unprecedentedly large number of Western writers and journalists are workingand living in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities, publishing more and more books written inEnglish. These books make significantcontribution for the world's understanding of China, and the viewpoint of outside observers is often refreshing toChinese readers as well. However, noforeigner could have written a book like "No.2 Boss"; the nuance couldonly come from the hand of a cultural insider.

By the way, officialdom novels are not a new genre in Chinaas some foreign observers think. The genre flourished in the Qing Dynasty. Inmy youth I read with great interest several of those novels mentioned in thisarticle. The genre disappeared in the Mao era, but has made a comeback inrecent decades. It seems to be reaching a new peak now. The fact that the genrehas become hot again might be a bellwether for the level of governmentcorruption.

Will Chinese Go Alphabetic?

2011-10-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, an email header in my inbox caught my eye, not becauseof its subject but its language. So I clicked the link. Here is the screenshot of what I saw:

Note the English word "Hold" in the middle of the otherwiseall-Chinese headline that translates to: "Can Real Estate Developers HoldAny Longer?" The article is acommentary from the independent media group (a rare presence in China) Caixin'swebsite, caixin.cn.

Though English words do show up here and there in Chinese blogposts nowadays, this is the first time I have seen a reputed Chinese publication mixing thetwo languages in an article.

Why does the author, who looks quite young from the photo,feel the need to repetedly use a particular English word in a Chinese article? It's possible that he thinks it expresses hismeaning more accurately than Chinese; it's also possible that he thinks thismixed language could be a more attractive style of writing for his readers. But,reading his headline makes my tongue feel utterly awkward.

It reminds me of a Mao quote that sticks from my childhood memory,when reciting Mao quotations was a fashion during the Cultural Revolution."Language and writing must be reformed to go alphabetic, the common direction oflanguages in the world," Mao said. And he indeed gave it a try in the 1950s. Peter Hessler had an excellent piecein the New Yorker several years ago that tells the language reform history. As it turns out, the reform attempt did not manageto alphabetize written Chinese, though it resulted in the official "pinyin"system that uses the Roman alphabet to assist the learning of Chinese pronunciation,as well as the simplification of some characters.

Since then, the debate on whether written Chinese should be replacedby an alphabet has never ceased. Bybirth, I'm a big fan of the square Chinese characters, which hold cultural, artisticand semantic richness in strokes and structures. I am not eager to see them go.However, today's young generation of Chinese seem to be a lot less attached totheir ancestral language, one of the consequences of globalization I suspect. I had never believed our beautiful square characterswould one day become obsolete; now I'm not so sure.

My Own "9/11" Complex

2011-09-16T09:45:00.000-04:00

... reposting a personal essay from three years ago.

The Camphor Suitcase

(Published in Literal Latte, 2008)

In the recent Year of the Snake — I remember because it's my daughter's sign — the image of a maroon suitcase made of camphor wood began to follow me like a phantom. It became most vivid in the dusk as I drove home from work, when my mind was free from corporate politics and daily domestic troubles. Along the road from Newton to Wayland, the famous New England autumn painted my windshield with shifting hues of golden red, dark red, light yellow, bright yellow, eclipsing shades of green and other unnameable colors. For me, born in southwest China, New England’s icy five-month winter imposes an unjust imprisonment; spring is practically non-existent; summer plays the double role of benefactor and spoiler; only the brilliant and solemn autumn calms my soul. But it failed me that year.

I hadn’t set eyes on the camphor suitcase for 13 years. (>>read the complete essay here)

"9/13 Incident" Special Issue

2011-09-13T17:01:00.002-04:00

Today is the 40th anniversary of the "9/13 Incident" that resulted in the death of Lin Biao, a man whose name was second only to Mao's during China's Cultural Revolution. Remembrance, a Chinese e-journal devoted to CR research, has published a double issue this week on the event and its aftermath. The editorial states:

The political earthquake that occurred onSeptember 13, 1971 greatly changed China – the "thorough victory of theCultural Revolution" myth, the "proletariatheadquarter" myth, the "united, victorious line of the Party's 9^thCongress" myth, and the myths of howwise and great Mao Zedong was and how his sharp eyes could perceive theminutest detail, all tumbled in one huge sound [of a plane crash] in Öndörkhaan.Most of the six hundred million Chinese then, no matter they were the "force"or "subject" of that "great revolution," no matter the differences betweentheir social status and living conditions, felt the power of that quake. Becauseof it, many people's life trajectories were changed, and even more changedtheir thought trajectories. After 40 years, to recall the marks of "9/13"left on individual lives and to assess the main characters of the event and therelated national history, is interesting and meaningful.

I was in middle school at the time, and I experienced shock and confusion. Even today there are still many unanswered questions about Lin Biao's alleged defection and the plane crash. Several articles in the special issue of Remembrance are written by children of the army generals accused as Lin Biao's co-conspirators. I heaved a deep sigh reading their memories. They provide a rare glimpse into the politics of China's highest echelon at the time. If you can read Chinese, click here.

(Note: I volunteer to host Remembrance on my website because the high quality e-journal has been publishing valuable materials on CR that can't be found elsewhere. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, the monthly journal does not have a website in China.)

Chinese Satire: "Biden Eats Noodles" ('Kong Yiji' Edition)

2011-08-25T10:21:00.007-04:00

by a Chinese blogger

(Note: In recent days, a satire post titled "Biden Eats Noodles" on the Chinese internet has been widely reposted, so much so I have been unable to verify the original author's name. Apparently there are many versions of the post circulating, perhaps continuously revised during reposting. The one I chose to translate is from a rights lawyer Chen Youxi's blog. This post, which derides both the Chinese and American governments, emulates the style of "Kong Yiji," a famous essay by Lu Xun from the 1930s. For you to get a flavor for the Chinese satire more completely, I arbitrarily found a translation of "Kong Yiji" on "The Translation Blog," which also has the Chinese original to compare to. And for an easier comparison between "Biden Eats Noodles" and "Kong Yiji," I tried to make my translation similar to that of "The Translation Blog"'s. Unfortunately, some humor is always lost in translation. – Xujun)

Photo from Chen Youxi's blog

[in translation]

The layout of the fried liver restaurants in the empire's capital is quite different from those in other towns. They are all big establishments with a blockhouse facing the street. Cold dishes are kept available so that they can be served at any time. Laborers, back from work at noon or dusk, would spend 5 jiao to get a bowl of fried livers – that was the price over 20 years ago, before the capital's students were chopped by the emperor, and a bowl costs 6 yuan now—where they lean over the counter, eat the warm dish before going to rest. With an additional ten yuan, you can get a dish of "pea yellow" or fried sausage to go with the wine. If you are willing to pay over 30 yuan, you can buy a meat dish. But most of the customers are the “Under Shirts” who cannot afford such luxuries, whereas, those who wear Western suits and ties would stride to the back room, order their wine and dishes and sit there taking their time to eat and drink.

I worked as a busboy at the Yao's Fried Liver restaurant, located under the capital's drum tower, since age 12. The shop keeper said that I had a dumb-looking face and was probably not smart enough to serve the “suit-and-tie clientele,” and thus should only work in the front room. The “under shirts” in the front room, although usually easy going, were no less troublesome. Some wouldn’t be satisfied until they saw me scoop out the gravy-sauce from the pan with their own eyes, to make sure that there was no melamine at the bottom of the bowl, and even watched me put the flat bread in the gravy sauce. Under such tight surveillance, it was difficult to cut down on materials. Therefore, after a few days, the keeper said I couldn’t even do that. Fortunately, due to the influence of my patron, the keeper couldn't dismiss me but he assigned me to the insignificant task of just serving soybean-paste noodles.

After that, I spent all day at the counter, doing my specialized job where I couldn’t make any blunders. The thing that bothered me most was that the job was so monotonous and boring. The keeper always glared at me with a fierce face, and the customers were not friendly either. Therefore, I couldn’t slack off even a little bit, except for the few laughs that the foreigner brought when he came to the restaurant. That’s why I can still remember him.

Biden was the only one who ate soybean-paste noodles while wearing a Western suit and tie. He was big and tall, with a rosy face, and had a head of bedraggled grizzly hair. Although he wore a suit, it seemed not to have been Armani nor expensively tailored, unlike the Vice President of a dignified country. He used so many obscure words and archaic phrases such as "hello," "yes" when he spoke that his speech was half unintelligible.

The moment Biden stepped into our restaurant, all the customers would look at him and start laughing. Someone would yell: “Biden, you got a new deficit on your fiscal book!” He never answered them, he only spoke to the waiter behind the counter: ‘A bowl of soybean-paste noodles, no eggs.’ He then spread out 10 big coins, all ten-dollar ones. The customers then intentionally raised their voices: "You must have borrowed again!" Biden replied with his eyes wide open: "How can you accuse me, an innocent person, without any basis?……” “What kind of innocent person? I saw with my own eyes on TV the other day that your congress got into a fight over debt." Biden’s face turned red and the veins on his forehead protruded. While defending himself, he said: “Great America is not poor…people are rich! … A democratic country's business, can it count as poor?” Following that he blurted out those archaic phrases, such as “democracy," "economics," so on and so forth. The crowd would burst into laughter; and the restaurant once again became lively and rowdy.

I learned from gossips that America used to be well off, but it listened to some nuisance called Keynesianism and often borrowed money to spend; eventually it became unable to control the loan addiction, nor was it capable of forceful demolition of houses (强拆) or making selling land the government business, less still to increase taxes. It got increasingly poorer day by day and was close to becoming a beggar. Fortunately, due to a thingy called intellectual property, it was just able to get by, making copies for others, to exchange for a bowl of rice. Though Biden was in dire poverty, at our restaurant he was more creditworthy than others. He never welched on his promise to pay. Even when he was really tight on money, he would write down the debt on the chalk board and always cleared it within a month and was able to erase the name of American Vice President from the chalk board.

After half a bowl of noodles, the flush on Biden's face faded. Someone sitting by him asked, "Biden, is America really the richest country in the world?" Biden stared at the guy who asked him, with a look of disdain. The guy carried on, "How come you can't even repay the foreign debt?” Biden looked affronted, his face turning dark, and babbled all the obscure and archaic phrases like "financial deficit" that no one could understand. At this moment, the people all broke into hilarity and the place was permeated with a festive air.

At these instances, I laughed along with the people, and those were the moments the shop keeper never scolded me for laughing. The keeper had also asked such questions to him many times, just to tease him. Biden knew that he couldn’t have a regular conversation with them, so he turned to the youngsters. Once, he asked me: “Have you ever studied English?” I nodded. He then said, “You have studied English, so let me test your knowledge. Do you know how to write the word 'fry' as in 'fry soybean paste'?” I thought, a bum like him, in what role is he testing me? I turned my back, ignoring him. Biden waited for a while, then said earnestly: “You can’t, can you? Let me teach you how. Remember it. It will be useful when you become a shop keeper. You’ll have to do the books.” I thought to myself that I was a long way from becoming a shop keeper, and our keeper never wrote down soybean paste noodles on the books. Biden was being ridiculous and annoying, so I answered coldly: "Who needs you to teach? Isn’t it f-r-y, fry?” Biden seemed excited, tapping the counter with two long nailed fingers, nodding: “Correct, 'fry' has four synonyms, do you know all of them?” I became more annoyed, scowled and walked away. Biden was about to write something on the counter with the nail that had been dipped in the wine. Seeing me uncaring, he sighed, putting on a look of pity.

Our keeper sneered:" Let me tell you, I'm a veteran in battles! Have seen a lot. The famous American journalist Wallace came to my store for soybean paste noodles, we regaled jovially! His extravagance, you Biden can't compare. Therefore, as a Vice President, you need to raise your income level! Understand? I see you didn't even dare to add an egg to your soybean paste noodles; I'm really worried for your America! Really, you Biden have one good thing: you eat noodles faster than anyone, but your consumption level [unintelligible words]…" Biden was so embarrassed, he said resentfully, "Wasn't I richer than you before? This a hundred dollars, keep the changes for your tip…" Then he hurriedly wiped his mouth and disappeared behind people's laughter.

After that, I didn’t see Biden for a long time. Around the anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize, the shop keeper took down the chalk board and said, ”Biden still owes me 19 coppers!” On May 35 of the following year, he said again, “Biden still owes me 19 coppers!” But he didn’t say it at the dried meat festival, and Biden hadn’t shown up either.

I haven’t seen him since — Obama has probably stepped down indeed.

Who Is the Guilty Party?

2011-08-02T20:04:00.012-04:00

by Anonymous

(Note: I got this from a friend in China who asked to remain anonymous. – Xujun)

[In translation]

CHINA — Two years ago, I bought a tiny flat from a stranger. While making some minor changes to the old interior, the electrician I hired found problematic wires, and that the electricity meter outside did not work. The electrician, who had more than 20 years of experience, concluded that the previous owner had messed about with the meter in order to steal electricity. He pointed to a jumble of wires and tried to explain – why this wire did not connect to the meter and that wire did not connect to ground – only to make me further confused. Finally I got the gist of what he was saying: the previous owner installed a very small switch inside the apartment, and reconnected the meter to the switch, which fully controlled the meter's readings. As the result, if he had used 100 kwh of electricity, the meter would only read 10 kwh.

This was the first time I heard of such a thing, so I was at a loss as to what to do. I asked the electrician, "Could you please rewire the meter to its original design for me?" He teased me, "Why should I? Isn't it better for you to save electricity cost?" I waved my hand and said, "Drop it, I'm a coward, I won't be able to sleep if I steal. The money saved this way wouldn't even be enough to buy me sleeping pills."

The electrician fiddled with the meter, but in the end couldn't do much to help, because there was a red seal in it that said, "Do not remove seal, Electricity Bureau only; otherwise bear full consequences." He said he couldn't take the responsibility.

I called the previous owner, who neatly denied everything. His voice was full of surprise: "Really? Really? I had no idea! How could it be?"

With no choice, I went to the housing estate's property management, hoping they would help me solve the problem. The director was a young man who looked like he was just out of college. He patiently heard me out and calmly said, "Things like that are not our responsibility. We wouldn't dare to touch that seal either. Why don't you call the Electricity Bureau, perhaps they will send someone for you? But…" he hesitated a few seconds and then said, "For this kind of thing, you know, the Electricity Bureau is very hard to deal with…" He stopped again, his expression looked restrained.

Coming out of the property management office with a foggy head, I ran into Manager Zhou of the real estate agency. After listening to my story, he warned me against acting rashly. "I have heard things like this before," he said, "the Electricity Bureau only holds the current owner accountable. Change electricity wires without authorization? Fine 5000 yuan. You don't pay? They cut your electricity immediately."

I argued, "Can't they be reasoned with? I haven't even moved in, how can it be my doing? Plus, if it were me who did it, why would I take the trouble telling them? It only makes sense for them to consider it the previous owner's responsibility!"

Manager Zhou laughed in surprise: "My God! Are you from an alien planet? China's electricity is a monopoly trade, they are the boss, who do they fear? What's there to reason with them? They don't care to figure out who's right or wrong; it is the most convenient to just grab you. You want to live in this house? Then you have no way to escape. Even going to the court it is 100% your fault. Believe it!"

I didn't believe, but I took his advice to make the call from a public phone a few housing estates away. I explained the situation to the Electricity Bureau. The woman who answered had a flat tone like machine: Please provide your name, phone number, and address.

With Manager Zhou wagging his head to signal me, I hurriedly said this was for a friend, who just wanted to know what she should do in this case.

The woman's tone was unchanged: 5000 yuan fine. After the fine is paid we will send someone to fix the wires.

I couldn't help but raise my voice: "But this wasn't my friend's fault! It was the previous owner, don't you understand? Wouldn't you be wronging a good person and letting a bad one go?"

The woman's same cold voice held to the end: We only hold the current owner accountable. This is the procedure.

I almost cried out: Fuck the procedure! Are you a robot?

I also wanted to say, Are you forcing an innocent girl to prostitute herself (逼良为娼)?

Manager Zhou looked at me sympathetically: "You really don't need to care, let it be. It's not just one or two households stealing electricity. To tell you the truth, the house I rent now has the same situation. In our building 60% of apartment owners do this."

I was speechless for a while. Then I said, "No way! Thieves are in the open, and a moral person must sneak around, this is turning things upside down! I don't care what others do, I must correct the meter. Please help me find a way."

Manager Zhou gave me a wry smile: "Never seen one as stubborn as you are. Go look in the famers market, there may be someone specialized in this sort of thing."

I suspected he was toying with me. I often went shopping in farmers market, how come I never saw such a person?

In a corner of the market, I asked a fish seller if there was an electricity master who could change wires. He pointed behind without lifting his head. A fat man wearing oil-stained clothes took the hint and came to me, asking directly: "Where do you live?" and then simply said: "500 yuan."

I glared at him: "Are you robbing me? At most 200."

He did not get upset, but smiled: "What a temper! 200 then. Deal."

The fat man made a call, lowering his voice to give the other end my address. He then told me "Go wait at home. Arrival within an hour."

In less than half an hour, a slight man wearing the work robe of Electricity Bureau arrived. Within a minute of opening the electricity meter, he was done. Seeing suspicion in my look, the man said: "Rest assured. Wires corrected and the seal replaced. I'm from the Electricity Bureau myself and have done this job often. There will be no problem."

I was curious: "You are often asked to change wires?"

He said frankly: "Illegal changes are naturally more than corrections. I do all. 500 yuan for an illegal change, not a penny less. For corrections I can give better prices."

I saw a big wad of seals in his bag and suddenly understood: When the electricity meter was changed in the first place, the seal must have been removed; why did I see one that was intact? The only answer is: the Electricity Bureau's staff must be the thief who steal what they are guarding (监守自盗). Who knows, perhaps the one who changed the wires last time was the same man today?

I sighed about the shadiness when I handed the man the money.

He said modestly: "We are just giving a hand to help everyone, otherwise what's to be done? Everyone needs to be fed, right?"

Nearly two years passed. On a hot day last month, the power went off at noon. I called the Electricity Bureau, and a worker arrived in 5 minutes. He said the fuse was burned and needed to be changed to a thicker one. Then he discovered something and said: "The meter has been messed around with."

The adage goes that "A thief's guilty consciences make him cowardly (做贼心虚)." I wasn't the thief but was cowardly all the same. I tried my utmost to deny.

The worker said: "Come and see – someone changed here. The ends are still here. We experts can tell with one glance. No need to deny. I'm going to call the Bureau and have them handle this."

He started to dial his cellphone. I was forced to ask pardon. I told him the whole story and hoped he would let me go.

I bet the man was just a big boy not even 23 years old. With plump cheeks and shining eyes, his face was full of innocent smile. He said: "I believe you. But the other guy did not do a thorough job. He must have been posing as an Electricity Bureau staff. Also possible he's a relative of a staff member, got the work robe, and used it to make money. You found me by calling the Bureau, so I can't be fake. I can redo the correction for you and ensure you can sleep in peace from now on."

Now seasoned, I asked: "How much?"

He said calmly: "At least 300 yuan."

I said: "At most 200. Please give me your name and cellphone number. I don't want to be endlessly extorted by you Electricity Bureau people."

He smiled brightly: "Don't get angry, we are only taking money to remove ill fortune (拿人钱财替人消灾)."

Two minutes later he declared everything was OK now. He left his cellphone number and told me to call him if there was any problem. "But there won't be any problem. Rest assured, there'll be problems no more." His smile was very warm.

"Grandpa Mao, I don't miss you at all"

2011-07-01T08:27:00.006-04:00

By Maple, guest blogger

[in translation]

Only a week ago I had thought that Shanghai, the so called cosmopolitan city, wouldn't be so off the beam as Chongqing.

Last week I went to the Shanghai Library and discovered the entire hall was decorated red: on walls were full of Party history file photos; from the broadcast came the song "the sun is the reddest, Chairman Mao is the dearest"; offered to patrons for free were red rice and pumpkin soup (Red Army food – Xujun). Very ostentatious!

Many people left comments under the "red" photos; of course those were politically conscious old comrades who extolled the Party. Very interestingly though, below the photo of Comrade Mao Zedong was a line of childish writing:

"Grandpa Mao, I don't miss you at all, because I see you on RMB every day."

I was going to take a photo of it with my cell phone; immediately a staff member came to stop me, class struggle written all over his face. I smiled at him: "I just want a memento of your propaganda. What's the big deal?" He asked back directly, "What is your work unit?" I had to "run away with my tail between my legs."

(Note: 1. RMB is Chinese banknote; 2. "Imperialists ran away with their tails between their legs" is a line in the red song "Socialism Is Good." – Xujun)

中文原文:

一周以前我还以为上海这样的所谓国际大都市不会像重庆那样离谱。

上周去图书馆，发现整个大堂都布置成一片红了，满墙贴的都是党史资料照片，免费供应红米饭南瓜汤，放着“太阳最红，毛主席最亲的歌”。阵仗得很！

那些红色照片下有不少人留言，当然都是有觉悟的老同志在歌颂党啦。但在毛泽东同志的画像下有一行稚气的文字很有意思：毛爷爷，我一点都不想你，因为我天天在人民币上看见你。

我拿出手机想拍照，马上有工作人员来阻止，满脸的阶级斗争。我笑言:你们搞宣传，我也作个纪念，有什么关系呢？工作人员就直接问：你是那个单位的？我只好夹着尾巴逃跑了。

My Block Booking for a Red Movie in Shanghai

2011-06-24T21:45:00.037-04:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[Note: July 1st this year marks the 90th birthday of China's Communist Party. To celebrate it, "red" movies and TV shows are sweeping the country, to the extent that popular spy shows are banned May through July. The biggest film made especially for this occasion is "The Great Cause of Founding the Party" (《建党伟业》), which, in the China-made English ad, is translated as "Beginning of the Great Revival." Its release day was June 15th. Here is the experience of an ordinary moviegoer on June 17th. -- Xujun]

[in translation，中文原文附后]

(Shanghai, June 17) I went to a movie theater this afternoon, to give myself a break after a week of intense painting. A French movie festival was ongoing, but I would have to wait until evening to see it. The 3D "Kung Fu Panda" was on, but that kind of fad is for teens with high-tech addictions and would only daze me.

Coincidentally, the movie "The Great Cause of Founding the Party" (《建党伟业》) was about to start in 5 minutes. I bought the ticket, as if guided by a deity. Entering the screening room, I was stared at by the theater staff. They were whispering about me -- did they suspect my head was crushed by the door?

It turned out that, in the whole screening room, with more than 400 seats, I was the only audience member, the only person who voluntarily dug into my own wallet to receive the "red" education.

To be fair, the movie is well made. The plot is tight, some details are moving, and the actors are high quality. But to put more than a hundred of the most famous stars into one movie, that seems like a practical joke.

Last time when "The Great Cause of Founding the Country" (《建国大业》) was made [in a similar fashion], many people went to theaters driven by the urge to "identify famous faces." From the beginning to the end, every time a face appeared on the screen, the hundreds of audience would roar in one voice: "Tang Guoqiang!" "Liu Yiwei!" "Liu Dehua!" For two hours, all were engaged in identifying, shouting, and guessing; identifying, shouting, and guessing. No one knew what the movie was about. To call it "great education for all people" is not as precise as "great entertainment for all people." Perhaps this was the leaders' real goal after all? Educating by entertaining?

Now once again the great entertainment comes, but the masses are tired, they don't want to play anymore. They have left me alone doing the identification and guessing. I still don't understand why Zhao Benshan (赵本山) would wordlessly stand in Yuan Shikai's (袁世凯) shadow, with an expression half laughing half crying, and why Liu Yunlong (柳云龙), an actor I admire, would be half hiding in the left lower corner like a shadow. This was too distracting! I identified this face and then that, couldn't hear at all what Zhou Runfa (周润发) was saying. What was the director's motive? I couldn't enjoy the movie itself, I was only thinking: Why is Wang Xuebing (王学兵) so haggard? Who is playing Xiaofengxian (小凤仙), so beautiful?

The most far-off thing was that all the scenes of Tang Wei (汤唯) were removed. She was acting Mao Zedong's first love (not Yang Kaihui), but because she had been all nude in "Lust, Caution," someone thought she would tarnish the great man's image. Yet Liu Ye (刘烨), the man who plays Mao himself, had starred in the most well-known homosexual film "Lan Yu" (《蓝宇》), with many shots of him all-nude in bed. If the same logic were used, wouldn't he tarnish Mao's image more directly? If we were back in the Cultural Revolution, the director would certainly be executed twice.

My only consolation is that, as a big screen lover, I enjoyed 135 minutes of exclusive block booking of the theater all by myself. I sat there straight to the last minute, until all names of the actors, workers, and musicians ascended beyond the screen.

For a moviegoer like me who's sick beyond cure, the staff member at the door was very sad. He slowly shook his head, like an owl.

(Continue to read the Chinese text / 继续阅读中文原文)

我的电影包场

Maple / 6月17日/上海

为一幅画忙了一星期，今天下午想去看场电影放松一下。

有个法国电影节，但要晚上才有场次，不想等。

《功夫熊猫》是3d的，这种小年青追捧的高科技，我看着头晕。

刚好有场5分钟之后就开场的电影《建党伟业》，神使鬼差地就定了它。

进场时有工作人员定晴看我，并低声议论，似乎在怀疑：这人是不是脑袋被门挤了？

结果全场四百来个位置，就我一人自觉自愿自掏腰包来接受“红色”教育。

平心而论，此片拍得不错，情节紧凑，有些细节感人，演员水准高。

只是他们安排一百多个名演员同时在一部电影里露面，似乎是一场恶作剧。

上次《建国大业》就有不少人是抱着“认名脸”的心情去的。一部电影从头到尾出来一个人下面就人几百人齐叫“唐国强！”“刘艺伟！”“刘德华！”

因为从头到尾都是名脸，所以两小时下来大家都在认认认，叫叫叫。脸熟又叫不出来名的，就在猜猜猜。结果电影讲了些什么，谁也不知道。与其说是全民大教育，不如说是全民大娱乐。不过也许这才是领导们的真实意途？寓教育于娱乐之中？

这次又来了，可民众却腻了，不爱玩了。结果我一个人在猜猜猜认认认。我一直不解为何让赵本山一言不发似笑若哭地站在袁世凯的背景中，又让我欣赏的柳云龙若隐若现影子一样立在左下角，实在让人分心呀！我辩了这个认那个，根本听不清周润发在讲什么。导演安的啥心呢？我无发静心接受教育或者享受电影本身，一心只在想：王学兵怎么这么憔悴呀！小凤仙是谁呢真是太漂亮了！

最离谱的是把汤唯的镜头全删了，原本她演毛泽东的初恋（非杨开慧），因《色戒》中她全裸出演事件，有人认为她会玷污伟人形象。可演毛本人的刘烨，却是出演过中国最有名的同性恋影片《蓝宇》的呀！并且还有不少正面全裸床上镜头。如果用某些人的逻辑推理，这难道不更是直接玷污了伟人形象吗？

这要回到文革时代，导演不被枪毙两次才怪哩！

唯一值得安慰的是，喜爱大银幕的我，活活享受了135分钟的电影包场礼遇。

而且电影结束后，我一直作古正经地端坐那里，坚持把所有演员表职员表乐队人员表的字幕都看完了，才依依不舍地离开。

面对我这种病入膏肓的观众，门口的服务员非常难过，像一只猫头鹰一样慢慢左右摇头。

Li Zhuang Returns Home; Fang Hong's Family Disappeared

2011-06-11T11:04:00.003-04:00

After serving one and a half years in a Chongqing prison, former lawyer Li Zhuang returned home to Beijing earlier today. His son, Li Yatong, posted on his micro-blog a photo of the family sitting in the airplane. I'm always happy to see a family reunion.

A little more than a month ago, Chongqing police had tried, but failed, to extend Li Zhuang's sentence with new charges. (For those of you who are not familiar with Li Zhuang's case, search keyword "Li Zhuang" on my blog and you'll find detailed posts, such as this one, following the trial last year.)

Li Yatong (middle), now in his third year of law school, has been firmly supportive of his father through the whole ordeal. His blog post "宣判" ("sentencing") was widely circulated on the Chinese internet last year.

While Li Zhuang is finally home, a Chongqing citizen, Fang Hong, was sent to labor reform for mocking Bo Xilai's handling of Li Zhuang. Fang also has a supportive and filial son, Fang Di, who hired a renowned lawyer, Yuan Yulai, for his father. Yuan Yulai is reputed to be most interested in cases of "citizens suing officials." A couple of days ago Yuan wrote on his micro-blog that Fang Di and other family members have disappeared after being summoned by police to talk.

Fang Hong's arrest shocked me more than Li Zhuang's trial, for even the appearance of legal procedure is abandoned. It is a stark naked case of "speech crime." If I had had any illusions about Bo Xilai before, like the first time when I saw his handling of Chongqing's taxi strike in 2008, Fang Hong's arrest was the last straw to convince me Bo is a ruthless politician believing in Mao style iron-handed rule, and a political gambler who stakes all on a single throw. I just don't know, 35 years after the Cultural Revolution ended, how far Bo can go in today's China.

Chongqing Impression

2011-05-21T14:47:00.004-04:00

Some readers of my earlier post "Chongqing Nostalgia. Where Is It?" asked for more stories about Chongqing. Here are two detailed pieces I wrote that appeared elsewhere last week:

Chongqing Dispatch - China Beat
Gingko Fever in Chongqing - Atlantic / Fallows

Kissinger Encloses Many Sides of Mao – A Review of On China

2011-05-17T00:05:00.067-04:00

On China by Henry Kissinger, Penguin Press, hardcover, 586 pages, $36

Reviewed by Bob Eberlein

“God has sent me an invitation, yet he [Kissinger] says, don’t go.”

So Mao Zedong reflects on the passing of his soul in a conversation with Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger in 1975. There is a chance that I have seen this quote before. If so, it passed me by. With limited knowledge of China and Mao at the time, I would not have understood the overwhelming irony embodied in the conversation.

Reading it afresh in Henry Kissinger’s new book On China - released today - I laughed and laughed. The conversation follows the riveting story of the opening of diplomatic relations between the US and China that was spearheaded by Kissinger. Though I knew how the story would end, I still found myself reading with great anticipation, for in this part of the book Kissinger has really managed to bring us into the moment, to show us things as he saw them then. And he certainly did not know what was going to happen next.

An earlier review of this book by Michiko Kakutani is critical of Kissinger for, among other things, failing to convey (my read) how evil Mao was. I am not sure how many times Kakutani sat down to chat with Mao but, as Kissinger so clearly depicts, the man could be charming and that is exactly the way he behaved in the meetings described in the book. Had Kissinger failed to chronicle this, it would have been a true shortcoming. Was Mao always charming? Certainly not, but it is beyond reason to expect a book to both present history from the eyes of a person experiencing it, and make it clear that the correct interpretation of events and personages exactly matches that of the reader.

It is true that, in keeping with his realpolitik tendencies, Kissinger, at times, is so matter of fact in his descriptions of events that he seems removed from them. I think his intent is simply not to be judgmental. He describes what happened at the time, and while he makes it clear that he felt, and still does, that his actions were the right ones, he is not heavy handed in trying to convince us of that. For the actions of others, he tries to give them context, but rarely passes judgment.

Throughout Kissinger demonstrates his character as an academic, a diplomat and a gentleman. The lack of derisive remarks about any individual is noticeable. On the one hand I have to admire Kissinger for doing that, but on the other there are times when I was hoping for a little more personal color. That said, he does use quotes from people (Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, Richard Nixon, Deng Xioaping, Gerald Ford, Jiang Ziming and more) extensively and effectively to convey character.

Kakutani also claims that the book does not really contain anything new. On the surface that is true; the material is already fairly well known. The narrative, however, is new. Kissinger tells the story of his foray into China as a person who was there, and places events and activities in a broad geopolitical context as the story unfolds. His interactions with the Chinese leaders constantly presented in terms of strategy and indirect meanings. An example is Kissinger’s reflection on Mao’s statement: “Do you have any way to assist me in curing my present inability to speak clearly?” Winston Lord, then Kissinger’s aide, felt Mao was asking for help being heard on the world stage and strengthening his own position. About this Kissinger says: “At the time, I though Lord’s comment probably farfetched. Having since learned more about Chinese maneuvering, I now consider that Mao meant it in the larger sense.” His admission that he disagrees with his former self is interesting, and is also very American of him.

On this particular issue, I think the Kissinger of the time was probably more to the point. The conversation, as reported in the Kissinger Transcripts, continued with Mao saying “This part (pointing to his brain) is working well, and I can eat and sleep. (Patting his knees) These parts are not good. They do not ache, but they are not firm when I walk. I also have some trouble with my lungs. And in one word, I’m not well, and majorlly (sic) unwell.” I would conclude, as Kissinger did, that Mao (who would die a year later) was most concerned with his health. He was getting on in age and might not have quite as sharp as he once was.

On China is a lot more than just Mao talking with Kissinger. It presents a broad reflection on China and its place in the world from ancient times up till today (or at least January of 2011). For me the book has three parts: the history, the story and the aftermath.

The history goes back to the Yellow Emperor, has a substantial discussion of Confucius and makes frequent references to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a favorite of mine and my wife's. Kissinger tries to give events context from both a Chinese and Western perspective and does an admirable job while keeping the text quite readable. Even if you know the history it is interesting to get Kissinger’s take on it.

Approaching more modern times, there is extensive discussion of the Korean war and the events leading up to it. While still researched history, the events occurred when Kissinger himself was actively surveying the world situation, especially with respect to the Soviet Union. This helps him set the atmosphere of the time as he, and many others in America, perceived it, and this serves as a wonderful lead-in to his personal involvement, first through Viet Nam and then directly with China.

Once the dance starts with China, I found the narrative quite riveting. The story is both personal and public and the characters, though known, get revealed more completely through their interactions with Kissinger. In addition to being simply fun to read, Kissinger’s reflections on meaning and context are fascinating. It is not always clear what he knew then relative to what he knows now, but sometimes he does bring this out and his ability to look back at his own past with such a critical eye really impresses me.

After relations with China have been normalized, the story becomes less personal. There is some irony in this because Kissinger’s involvement is actually more personal. He no longer had any official position after Ford left office, so he meetings and talked with China’s leaders as a private person. To me, the writing seems more removed, more like that of an armchair academic, and perhaps this is out of deference to the people who took over where Kissinger left off. In any case, the material is still interesting.

While the book is mostly about the past, it is very relevant to today, and the future. Kissinger is an astute observer of the political dynamics in both the US and China and he lays out some very interesting scenarios on what might happen in Sino-US relations going forward. From his perspective there are many ways things can go wrong, and only a few ways that things can go right. Perhaps my impression on that is more pessimistic than Kissinger intended, but I hope that leaders from both countries will take the time to read On China and make the latter the more likely.

On China is a valuable historical document, and a fun read. Hard to ask for much more.

----------
This review is part of a TLC "Virtual Book Tour."

Henry’s Tour Stops
Wednesday, May 11th: Man of La Book
Thursday, May 12th: Mark’s China Blog
Tuesday, May 17th: Inside-Out China
Wednesday, May 18th: Lisa Graas
Sunday, May 22nd: Rhapsody In Books
Monday, May 23rd: Divided We Stand United We Fall
Tuesday, May 24th: Bookworm’s Dinner
Wednesday, May 25th: Pacific Rim Shots
Thursday, May 26th: Asia Unbound
Monday, May 30th: Hidden Harmonies China Blog
Tuesday, May 31st: Wordsmithonia
Wednesday, June 1st: Lit and Life
Thursday, June 2nd: ChinaGeeks
Tuesday, June 7th: booker rising
Wednesday, June 8th: Power and Control
Thursday, June 9th: Marathon Pundit
Friday, June 10th: Rundpinne

White or Red: Bo Xilai's Quandary

2011-05-13T12:55:00.003-04:00

While in Chongqing last month, I heard this story:

Bo Xilai was puzzled why Taiwan businesses shy away from Chongqing, despite the fact he has "aggressively provided preferential policies to attract investment." The Taiwanese are around and nearby -- they have made the Sichuan province their most popular destination in western China – but they avoid Chongqing. Bo asked the question in a meeting, and he was told, well, it is the "Refuse Pit Prison."

The said prison is the flagship of Chongqing's "red culture." A legacy from the Nationalist era, for decades in Communist China the prison had been publicized as a 1940s "concentration camp run by America and Chiang Kai-shek," in which Communist inmates heroically struggled. (I've written about this in detail on the Atlantic web.) Recently the indication of "America" has been quietly dropped off from some official books, but the mendacious name "SACO concentration camp" ("中美合作所集中营") still appears on many Chinese websites and in the media. In any case, the fierce denunciation of the Nationalist's crime in a "white terror" period has apparently made Taiwanese businessmen uncomfortable with Chongqing.

When Bo suddenly saw the light about the problem, he faced a quandary. To promote "red culture" in Chongqing he could not avoid publicizing the flagship Refuse Pit prison. On the other hand, in recent years the central government has been doing its utmost to improve Taiwan-Mainland relations. The official rhetoric, covering the civil war history in the 1940s, has largely dropped derogatory terms that were once used to attack the Nationalists. This tendency is most visibly reflected in recent hot TV series. "Before Dawn" (黎明之前), a highly popular depiction of the spy war between the Communists and Nationalists in the late 1940s, is a good example. (It stars the charming actor Wu Xiubo, and the plot is quite cleverly done despite some inevitable holes. I had a great time watching it.) In its stage language, the trace of ideological flavor is reduced almost to the minimum. Meaningfully, the ending departs from all previous such shows – neither the protagonist nor the antagonist dies. Instead they part like brothers who would eventually reunite again.

Also of interest is the Jianchuan Museum, a rare – and quite large -- private museum cluster located in Dayi county near Chengdu. I visited it in early April. The largest exhibition in it is probably "China's War of Resistance against Japan: the Hall of the Frontal Battlefield," which clearly regards (though still unofficially) the Nationalist army as the main fighting force during that war. In contrast, my childhood education was all about the Communist Party leading the Chinese people to victory in the eight-year war. This is yet another revision of history that the government has quietly encouraged.

Jianchuan Museum

So, having to choose between "red culture" and "white" Taiwan businesses, guess which way Bo Xilai went?

As Patrick Chovanec mentioned, Bo Xilai is sometimes viewed as "cynical" for his famous "red songs" campaign, since Bo and his parents were victims of the Cultural Revolution that the "red song" singing evokes. The Western media has been rather fascinated by – perhaps obsessed with – this venture of Bo. Chongqing people, on the other hand, seem to treat the singing more as entertainment, or even a way to profit on the side, than a political activity. When I asked a friend whether she thinks the "red songs" would actually affect people in an ideological sense, she said, "It is not an ideological thing, it is an economic thing." I have heard from several sources that work units offer financial incentives for people to participate in the singing. It is said that Chongqing's fiscal administration shoulders a lot of extra expenses for the campaign, though the government doesn't tell citizens this.

A successful businessman dismissed Bo's campaign as just advertising that means nothing, even if it is silly. "Chongqing is too remote a place; Bo needs to make a splash to be noticed," he said to me. In other words, it's nothing substantial. Yet another friend, a retired woman, told me many participants are like her, whose kids are grown and who now have the time to enjoy the nostalgic singing.

There are people, of course, who think differently. I will talk more about those in another post.

For now, let me give you an update on the Refuse Pit prison. For a while the site had been rather quiet, perhaps because people had better things to do. Now, with the new upsurge of Bo Xilai's red culture campaigns, the site is bustling again.

Here is a photo from Chinanews.com: "28 female college students playing Jiang Jie when visiting Refuse Pit."

Jiang Jie is a Communist heroine in the historical novel Red Crag, which has an English translation described in Amazon with:

Upon the book's original publication in Peking in 1978, the publisher said:

"This novel is written by two ex-inmates of the U.S.-Chiang Kai-shek secret service concentration camps in Chung-king, Szechuan Province, China. The year is 1949. ..."

By the way, the novel was first published in 1961. In it, Jiang Jie is cruelly tortured in the Refuse Pit prison and eventually executed by the Nationalists.

Now look at the smiling young women in the photo taken in front of the prison cells. And the uniform hair style, uniform dress, even uniform round faces. There is a certain comical effect in it.

The person who pointed it out to me commented: "The Chongqing government has gone mad."

A Poll on How to View Chongqing's 'Sing Red Songs' Campaign

2011-05-05T15:09:00.003-04:00

If a public poll from Chinese media means anything, here is one on the website of China's International Herald Leader titled "How to View Chongqing's 'Sing Red Songs' Upsurge." The questions and votes (as of this writing) are translated below:

Is it still meaningful to ardently sing red songs in our new era?

Yes, the spirit they represent is still worth promoting (39.02%)
Yes, they are excellent musical works (6.13%)
No, the background of the songs' time no longer exists (40.1%)
No, most singers can't understand their connotation (11.04%)
No, revised too much (1.54%)
Don't know (2.2%)

Can red songs arouse the lost belief?

Yes (17.13%)
No (55.89%)
At least some positive effect (24.81%)
Not sure (2.19%)

The Ambivalent Role of China's Middle Class -- A Book Review

2011-05-02T12:20:00.013-04:00

The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World’s Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You by Helen H. Wang, Bestseller Press, $16.97 paperback, $9.99 Kindle edition

"What do you think 'middle class' means in China?" I raised this question to Chinese friends during my trip to Chongqing in April. I was after a spontaneous answer. From what I heard, the consensus seems that if you own a house and a car, you are in middle class. An art professor, who owns neither, said that by classical definition a professional is middle class, but in today's China he is no longer sure if he is middle class despite the fact he is a professional.

And this is what I found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

Definition of MIDDLE CLASS: a class occupying a position between the upper class and the lower class; especially : a fluid heterogeneous socioeconomic grouping composed principally of business and professional people, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers sharing common social characteristics and values.

In her new book, The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World’s Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You, Helen Wang defines Chinese middle class today as "urban professionals and entrepreneurs from all walks of life, who have college degrees and earn an annual income from $10,000 to $60,000." In Chinese currency and today's exchange rate, those income figures convert roughly to a range of 5,500 – 33,000 Yuan per month. This is a wide spectrum: those in the lower range likely won't be able to afford a house, and thus might not consider themselves middle class.

Regardless of the definition, Wang chose a great topic. It is unarguable that a large middle class is growing quickly in China right now. The old impression that China is a country made up of many laborers working for nothing along with a few corrupt party bosses is fading in America. Nonetheless, many of the fears associated with that impression, especially the concern that China is taking all America’s jobs and power, remain with us today.

In The Chinese Dream, the author tries to do two things. First she tries to give a face and voice to those Chinese people who are neither slave laborers nor corrupt politicians. Second, she tries to show why changes in the makeup of China’s population, specifically the emergence of a powerful middle class, should alleviate fears the West have about China and its rise on the international stage. She is quite successful in the first of these.

Wang interviewed and writes about many people. Some are movers and shakers with rags to riches stories, such as those profiled by James Fallows and Phillip Pan, but many are far more ordinary folk who have done better than most, but the same as many. These ordinary people form the main body of the middle class, regardless of the way it is defined. Their youth, optimism and, dare I say it, irresponsibility, are quite fascinating to read about. The emergence of conspicuous consumption, people running after the latest status symbol, is good to have chronicled even if I find it somewhat disheartening.

My favorite chapter in the book, and probably the most informative chapter for those trying to understand what this middle class means for business, is the chapter on Jack Ma and his Alibaba company. The man himself is a remarkable character, and his success against ebay is fascinating. One of the most interesting thing is that ebay’s errors do not seem to be from a lack of cultural understanding so much as an inability to comprehend the mechanics of a cash economy.

The genesis of China's new middle class as a whole, however, is hardly a glorious story. I read with keen interest the book's well-written first chapter, "A Peculiar Private Sector," which describes the "state-created bourgeoisie." When I left China in the summer of 1988, the private sector was still budding. If there was a middle class at the time, it could only be cadres at various levels of the government and state-owned enterprises and organizations, not necessarily because of high salaries but their access to resources. (In fact, my parents belonged to this class.) Then, in the early to mid-2000, each time when I returned to Chongqing for a visit, I repeatedly heard taxi drivers – most of them had been laid-off factory workers – complaining bitterly that their factory managers divided the state property and pocketed the money, while firing the workers. Now in Wang's The Chinese Dream, the story of Chen Ling, whose position as a division director at a state-owned company conveniently morphed into ownership of a private business, provides the missing details of that transition. As the author aptly summarizes, "There was no open bidding, no auction, and no initial capital requirement. The process transferred wealth from the state to individuals. Some of them were connected and capable, others were simply in the right place at the right time."

A middle class that was created by the state in this manner and continues to benefit from the current system ought to have some fundamentally different traits from their (nominal) counterpart in Western countries. I was hoping the author could explore this aspect further and, while she does touch on some of the differences, she seems to emphasize the commonalities more.

For one thing, the Chinese middle class is more content than critical, thus it easily becomes the keen keeper of the status quo (and this was exactly the impression I got from talking to various businessmen during my visits to Chongqing in recent years). As such the author's assertion that “As the Chinese middle class continues to grow, democracy will arise in its time” seems a bit questionable. This said, I do agree with her that China's democratic system (if there will be one) could take a very different form from the West's. For example, a Confucian named Jiang Qing (蒋庆) has suggested that a variety of different paths of governance could emerge.

Another issue I wish Wang had addressed is the tendency of China's middle class to emigrate. As a Chinese blogger recently wrote, to those who made some money in China, there is the feeling of insecurity about their assets. Apparently they are more likely to consider going abroad than striving toward a democratic government. The well-known magazine publisher and acrimonious essayist, Hong Huang, says that all the Chinese whose annual income has reached 120 K Yuan (which happens to fall in The Chinese Dream's definition of middle class) have the tendency to emigrate. If this is even partially true, it is something to worry about for both China and America.

In the end, Wang has not quite achieved her goal of alleviating fears and suggesting America will be stronger with a strong China than without. I partially agree with that conclusion, but my agreement derives from the simple observation that people are weak in poverty, content in prosperity and dangerous in between. Wang seems to suggest monotheism as a unifying force in international conflicts, but I have not seen a lot of evidence lately that monotheism assures peace, or even moves us in that direction.

I admire the author's noble hopes, and I would agree that China shows no tendency toward imperialism (to use the word we so loved to throw at America as children), but perhaps because I'm a pessimist, I do not see it as inevitable at all that China and the US will get along in the future, or that there will be a convergence of governance conventions. Many things could happen; I envy Wang her optimism.

Despite my slight disagreement with some of the conclusions, the material from which they are drawn is well worth reading. Wang cites not only many conversations, but a variety of academic and business studies that are helpful in framing the overall issues facing China. And she has certainly started a very interesting discussion on what China's middle class means to Americans.

Chongqing Nostalgia. Where Is It?

2011-04-26T13:39:00.002-04:00

I took the following photos earlier this month during my visit to Chongqing, where I could find few traces of anything familiar from my childhood.

The Liberation Monument (解放碑)

The Liberation Monument (解放碑)– Yes, that piteous little thing in the center – the Liberation Monument used to be the great landmark of Chongqing. Is the towering building on the left purposely trying to mock and humiliate it?

Flat Bread (烧饼)

Flat Bread (烧饼) – Oh my childhood favorite snack! Street vendors of flat bread used to be seen in every block of downtown Chongqing . Now walking through the entire Central District I found only one, hiding in a corner of Eighteen Steps (十八梯). The couple who were making flat bread at first panicked seeing me taking photos; they thought I was a "cheng-guan" (城管) who came to seize their little business.

Controversial Nude Sculpture

Controversial Nude Sculpture – On Chongqing's first Yangtze Bridge, the four nude sculptures, "Spring," "Summer," "Autumn" and "Winter" sparked a big controversy that embroiled the entire city, even the country, in the early 1980s (I participated in the debate). The artists eventually yielded to public pressure and added a sheer veil for each figure. The one in this photo is "Spring." (It apparently has been moved because the bridge's width is now doubled.)

The Obsoleted Ferry – In this photo, where a new bridge for light rail is being built, there used to be a ferry dock that I frequented as a child. My home was on the south bank of the Yangtze looking down those rocks, my childhood haunts. When I left China in 1988, there was only one bridge on each of the two rivers, Yangtze and Jialing, that surround the city, and ferries were the main connection between the three land areas (The South Bank, River North, and Central District). Now the total number of bridges exceeds twenty, and all ferries have become obsolete.

Prosecutors Drop Charges against Li Zhuang

2011-04-23T07:49:00.007-04:00

(I'm back from China now. So good to be able to access my blog again! This is a quick post about new developments in the Li Zhuang case. Li Zhuang was the Beijing lawyer who tried to defend a "gangster" in Chongqing and was jailed himself last year. )

In English:

China Drops Charges Against Lawyer (WSJ)
Charges of witness tampering don't stick (China Daily)
Prosecutors in China Drop Charges Against Lawyer (NYT)

In Chinese:

李庄悲喜四天
陈有西述评：这是法治中国的胜利 ("This is a victory for the rule of law in China" -- the author, Chen Youxi, was Li Zhuang's lawyer last year)
斯伟江：李庄再次被控辩护人妨害作证罪一审辩护词

For more background information, here are my posts following the case last year:

Lawyer's Trial in Chongqing Rivets Public and Tests Chinese Courts Jan 05, 2010
The People vs. Li Zhuang (2009) Jan 12, 2010
What Are Li Zhuang and the Chongqing Government Up to? Feb 04, 2010
Li Zhuang Receives Reduced Sentence Feb 08, 2010

Lunch with Chinese Friends in Chongqing

2011-04-07T23:50:00.010-04:00

by Bob Eberlein

(posted via proxy)

This week I had the opportunity to sit down to lunch in Chongqing with my wife and several of her acquaintances. While my ability to understand Chinese, and even the Sichuan dialect, is pretty good for day-to-day things, my vocabulary is limited, so whenever topics stray too far from the necessities of life, my ability to follow becomes more limited.

Chongqing at Night (photo by Bob Eberlein)

The lunch topic I was most keen to see discussed was Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s Party boss who, from crackdowns on criminal gangs to the widespread promotion of Red Songs, is having a big impact on the landscape of Chongqing. My interest was as much in watching the talk; body language reveals a lot and I was wondering both how forthcoming and how energetic her friends would be in discussion. There were two businessmen, who had ridden high on the wave of China’s development, along with an academic. All were living pretty decent lives in modern China.

Reticence, I have to say, was completely lacking. In fact, when the discussion turned to censorship and the freedom people have to speak out in China the attitude was basically that they could say anything they wanted. I am skeptical that this is true, and I learned long ago that, even in America, simple courtesy, along with the desire for continued gainful employment, don’t allow me to constantly say exactly what is on my mind. Still, their attitudes were genuine. They were thinking about speaking privately among friends, not looking for a public platform to express their opinions, and unencumbered speech is pretty believable in that context.

Actually, the whole topic of free speech engendered a great deal of discussion. A lot of time was spent with one person saying, and another agreeing, that China had made great progress in this regard. Discussion of progress in one area led to discussion of progress in another area and again there was agreement progress had been made. No one contested any of the statements about progress, but lots of time was still spent on the topic. There is a feeling among Chinese that foreigners do not recognize that things have changed. I can understand this, and it may actually be a true perception of some foreigners, but it is odd so much time was spent there.

But what did they think of Bo Xilai? For me, the nature of the answers given was the most telling. He controlled the unchecked migration from rural to urban Chongqing, imposing an order that has been helpul. His crackdown on criminals has made Chongqing safer. The Red Songs are just like advertising and mean nothing (even if they are silly). Mostly they seemed very positive about what Bo Xilai had done, though I was a bit out of my depth trying to understand, so nuances of how he might have done things better likely passed me by. They looked at the decisions to be made as complicated, and (here I am guessing) admired the man for being able to make hard choices.

Xujun kept pressing on the inherent weakness of the system, and they kept pushing back. As I listened I was hearing about what I would call policies, when Xujun wanted to talk about Bo Xilai and his politics. Xujun translated the response she kept getting as the problems are technical, not systemic. Afterward, when Xujun told her sister they had named the problems as "technical," her sister responded “What does that mean?” Indeed that was the question I had, because the discussion was not about technical issues at all, but rather choices that had been and needed to be made about urbanization and related issues. (Given that we were in Chongqing, China’s fastest developing metropolis, and we were talking to people working in construction-related businesses, urbanization absolutely made sense as the area of biggest concern).

As far as the future is concerned, one of the topics of conversation that came up was whether the Cultural Revolution could repeat itself, whether there could be another Mao era. It has been a long time since I have heard Mao Zedong’s name spoken so many times in such a short period. Everyone, except Xujun, was pretty adamant that this could not happen (I am also agnostic on this, though I was not adding my opinions). Why? Here I got a little lost but I believe the argument is basically that people have too much to lose, not something they perceived the last time around. A good point, and not one that is lost on me, but it does not dispel my fundamental belief that people can take almost anything for granted and once this happens they no longer perceive it as something they can lose. But I digress.

Later that day, at dinner, Bo Xilai again came up in conversation with another friend. Xujun’s sister asked if it was okay to talk about him and our host hushed her and said of course. I had to laugh at this, fortunately that went unnoticed. More good words, combined with significantly more reticence. He even gave Bo Xilai credit for getting freight to run by rail from Chongqing to Europe. A cool accomplishment, but I am not sure whose credit that really would be.

As I ponder this I think that the Chinese we were talking to do not believe there is any inherently right approach to either governance or economic policy. Be it Capital or The Wealth of Nations, they simply don’t believe. Absent such a framework there is only experience to build on. It is an empirical approach to governance: “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” This is common in business, but perhaps antithetical to the percepts of the Founding Fathers of America. This might be the source of the disconnect they see between their reality and American criticism.

In any case, if they perceive that the problems are not systemic, but technical, then any advice offered by others damned well better be practical!

Glass Magazine Interviews Writers

2011-03-21T13:43:00.015-04:00

Glass, a handsome quarterly published in UK, interviews several international writers in their spring issue. In an article titled "Women Hold Up Half the Sky," the journalist, Samantha Kuok Leese, says about my writing:

Contemporary author Xujun Eberlein is a native of Chongqing, one of China's major south-western cities, who moved to the United States in 1988. Her first book, Apologies Forthcoming, won the 2007 Tartts Fiction Award and established her as one of the most refreshing new voices in Chinese women's writing.
The collection of eight stories is a moving remembrance of the Cultural Revolution at an individual level, through which Eberlein gives voices to a variety of characters in a range of times and settings. The book's subtitle is pointedly Stories not about Mao. (Note: this refers to the Hong Kong edition – Xujun) Her time outside China encouraged her to present the historical calamity of the Cultural Revolution in small but deeply absorbing episodes.
"Having lived in two countries of political opposites, I am no longer easily excited by “-ist” labels, be it Communist, capitalist, imperialist, or terrorist. I have learned there are people’s faces behind all those “-ists,” with human commonalities and differences, human weaknesses and biases. I've seen similarities in national and international politics and propaganda, and the information disparity that exists on both sides of the earth.
"It is easy for people in each country to see the other in a rather abstract and presumptive manner, instead of as fully fleshed fellow human beings. My intention was thus to return to the basics of human nature, to portray the characters as realistically human as I could."

There's more about my writing in the article, which also talks about another writer I admire, Xu Xi. Other writers you will read in this issue are Junot DÃaz, Isabel Allende, Russell Hoban, and Liz Calder. Though the content is not available from their website, you will probably be able to find the magazine on newsstands and in large bookstores. See more information below.

Here's the Glass newsletter that arrived in my inbox:

Glass

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: DREAMS

Dreams are the driving force of the world. Progress, development and hope are all made possible by the existence of these notions, whether it be to propel artistic freedoms, push scientific frontiers or simply make the world a better place. Glass was also conceived as a dream, to inform, challenge and inspire and we proudly celebrate one year since our dream was realised. In the past four issues we have had the privilege of speaking to some of the greatest creative, scientific and humanitarian names of our time. From Alber Elbaz and Karl Lagerfeld to Maggie Cheung and Shigeru Ban, from Charlotte Rampling to MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ©res, Renzo Piano to UNICEF. We thought it fitting therefore, to dedicate this anniversary issue to the beauty of the dream. As such we have strived to collaborate with some of the most inspirational names, whose dreams have led them to become pioneers and progenitors in thought and deed.

We begin by exploring an artform which has inspired and nurtured minds of millions, of all ages and cultures, that of literature. We speak to some of its finest contemporary exponents; Junot DÃaz, Isabel Allende, Russell Hoban, Liz Calder and two of China's pioneering female writers; Xu Xi and Xujun Eberlein, who each offer an unparalleled insight into their craft. Rarely does an institution change the way we see the world but the Magnum Photos co-operative has done just that. Four of Magnum's finest photographers talk us through the stunning, sometimes fearless, but always remarkably human photographs that have captivated for the last half century. In celebration of originality at its best Glass speaks with inimitable designer Yohji Yamamoto and bastions of luxury Louis Vuitton prove their admirable and surprising eco green credentials in an exclusive interview. In a Glass first we photograph the best of the women's international collections across two continents. Photographer Trunk Xu shoots part one in Beijing, with Paul Scala picking up the baton in London. Neil Kirk captures the best of the men's Spring collections in his ever timeless fashion and Gregoire Vieille creates a story of sorcery for the most iconic men's watches.

In muse we speak to art's latest provocateur, Toby Ziegler, on the literal art of recycling, China's most prolific female artist Yin Xiuzhen offers her thoughts on our increasingly globalised yet isolated society, and erudite legend Lois Dodd tells of life as a fledgling artist competing against the all-powerful Abstract Expressionists in 1950s New York. Art photographer Nadav Kander talks us through his stunning Yangtze River series and the legendary Peter Sculthorpe, considered the last great composer, reveals the life behind his esteemed repertoire.

Architectural protagonist Daniel Liebskind guides us through the atypical inspirations informing his revolutionary work and the world's leading expert on dreams challenges our understanding of consciousness. Living legend Sir Patrick Moore unravels the secrets of the universe and UNICEF director, David Bull, explains why we must never give up on a child's most basic dreams. Inspiration enough, we hope, to encourage and stir your own dreams and with any luck, to pursue them.

Thank you to everyone that has supported Glass.

Glass Issue 5 will be in stores from March 16th Distributed to newsstands by Comag including Selfridges & Harrods

Additional placements include premium locations such as the Mandarin Oriental Hotels, St Regis Hotels, all VIP lounges in London Heathrow, Gatwick, Hong Kong International Airport, Paris CDG & Eurostar, Milan Linate & Malpensa, Shanghai & Beijing IA, JFK & LAX
For more information & image permission : info@theglassmagazine.com

LED City Gates for Chongqing. What's Next?

2011-03-15T14:31:00.016-04:00

This is rather interesting (from China Radio International English):

Chongqing to Build LED Digital City Gates

Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality is rebuilding its old city gates with LED by virtualization, which would reproduce the ancient scene of seventeen gates of the city at night, the Chongqing Morning Post reports.

The visuals will be cool, I'm sure. What I'm not sure is whether this is 500 million yuan well spent, or just another scheme of Bo Xilai's to boost his career achievements as a rising star politician, following his push for mass campaigns such as singing "red songs" and cadres "aiding" the countryside. The "red song" movement is an eerie reminder of the "loyalty-word dances" (忠字舞) during the Cultural Revolution, and the cadres-leaving-town fad has been dubbed as another "up the mountains and down to the countryside" movement (上山下乡). But if Bo Xilai is fashioning a modern version of the Cultural Revolution, its style has certainly changed from dark Orwell to euphoric Huxley. Is Bo aiming to be Chongqing's Mao, or George Burns?

Chongqing people singing "red songs" on a replica Great Wall (from mitbbs.com)

P.S. To give you a sense what a city gate in Chongqing is like, here is a photo of the Tongyuan Gate, which I took in spring 2009. Of the original seventeen ancient gates, this is one of the only two that remain (with some restoration):

Chongqing's Tongyuan Gate (photo taken 2009)

Bicycle-Free China: A Review of The Lost Cyclist

2011-03-05T15:31:00.011-05:00

The Lost Cyclist by David Herlihy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26, hardcover

Reviewed by Bob Eberlein

In a recent post on the Atlantic’s web site, Xujun made the claim that I was the first American to ride a bicycle across China in 1987. She was thinking, of course, about her China, the one she had grown up in under Mao that had pretty much shut Americans out and certainly had no appetite for foreign adventurers. I would be very surprised if I was the first post-Mao, though I have no idea who beat me. I just know that there are lots of people who do things just to do them, and don’t try to call attention to themselves. Perhaps, in this day of YouTube and Tweeter, such actions have fallen by the wayside, though I still like to think of the multitudes out doing odd and wonderful things all under the cover of anonymity.

Forget about modern China. Before Mao, before the Nationalists, before the Warlords, while China still had an Emperor (or at least a Dowager) in charge, the Americans Thomas Allen and William Sachtleben rode their bicycles together across the Gobi desert, reaching Peking in the fall of 1892. A kind reader sent a comment to Xujun telling her about a book, The Lost Cyclist, which gives an account both of their trip, and another by Frank Lenz heading east to west shortly thereafter. Xujun clarified her meaning, and acknowledged the book in a follow-up post. The publisher, noticing mention of The Lost Cyclist on the Atlantic site, sent along a copy – a wonderful surprise!

No one ever did identify any of the cyclists I assume preceded me in crossing the People’s Republic of China, perhaps this review will prompt such a revelation.

The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and his Mysterious Disappearance by David Herlihy is both an adventure story and a murder mystery, unique for nonfiction, with a fair bit of historical information thrown in. It chronicles the emergence of the vehicle we now think of as a bicycle, then called a safety bicycle to distinguish it from the high wheelers that preceded it, and the, mostly, men who rode them. Then it takes off across America, Europe and Asia from west to east with Allen and Sachtleben, and east to west with Lenz.

Drawing on the material that Lenz himself had written, the book paints a very interesting picture of 1890s China as Lenz perceived it. Remarkable to me was that he thought of it as the most wild and uncivilized place on the planet. In an interview while in China Lenz says “Afghanistan, Persia and Asia Minor, each have formidable difficulties. But they are not of so dangerous a nature as those who entertain the superstitious belief that a man on a bicycle is a flying devil from the clouds.”

This was a China that had never seen a bicycle. To me that is almost as unfathomable as Lenz must have been to the Chinese peasants. Almost a century later I also astonished people in the countryside, but they knew exactly what a bicycle was. They would ride side by side with me and marvel at my beard and the foreign vehicle on which I traveled.

As I read of Lenz’s travels through China a feeling of dread fell upon me. I feared, as did those he met along the path (for there were few roads in China), that his life would end there. It was with a sigh of relief that I turned the pages onto his passage into Burma.

Lenz never finished his trip and never returned home. I will not say where his travels ended so as to allow some feeling of mystery to remain for those who have not yet read the book. A third of the book is devoted to the attempt to unravel what happened to him, and bring those responsible to justice. Sachtleben took on this responsibility and found himself in the midst of amazing and heart rending political unrest. On his quest Sachtleben demonstrated bravery, tenacity, competence and even guile. More than anything though, the events depicted saddened me, for he was caught in a dangerous and dark moment in human history, and Sachtleben was lucky to escape with his life.

Though he did solve the mystery, justice was never done. Rather the injustice that Sachtleben witnessed carried him back to the United States with a heavy heart. The book opens with a brilliant scene some sixty years later, where Sachtleben returns to his boyhood home to look again upon that innocence. That scene is nice on first reading, but ever so much more powerful when reread after finishing the book.

So all in all The Lost Cyclist is a great read. And yes, for those purists among us, Thomas Stevens road across China in 1886. But his bike was one of those high wheelers and, for goodness sakes, the guy was British.

Another Kind of American History in Chongqing 1-5

2011-02-01T09:57:00.012-05:00

Did Americans run a concentration camp in Chongqing in the 1940s? My first post at James Fallows' Atlantic site went up yesterday - Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 1: Prologue

Update: the 2nd post is up - Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 2: Evolution

Update 2/2: the 3rd post is up - Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 3: Puzzle

Update 2/3: the 4th post is up - Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 4: Explorers

Update 2/4: the final post is up - Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 5: Revision

Guest Blogging for James Fallows

2011-01-31T10:15:00.004-05:00

This week I'll be a guest blogger for James Fallows at his Atlantic site, together with Bruce Holmes, Chuck Spinney, and Andrew Sprung. See James' intro here. An impressively diverse group, as James said, and I expect to see some very interesting posts. So please go check it out.

I'll be writing a series of 4-5 posts, one each day, congruently titled "Another Kind of American History in Chongqing." I will link to the posts as they are published. Stay tuned.

The Innocent Lang Lang and the Hyper Internet

2011-01-24T17:59:00.015-05:00

I haven't paid much attention to news these days, burying my head in writing. This morning, Bob, who was reading the Wall Street Journal, asked me if I knew what song Lang Lang had played at the White House's state dinner for Hu, and why it is regarded as anti-American.

Surprised, I checked it out on the internet, in Chinese and English. I didn't for a second believe that Lang Lang had any hidden political intention, so the extent of internet and media reaction perplexed me.

It is true that the song in question, "My Motherland," was the theme song of a Korean-War movie, which I watched more than once as a child. The song's music is melodious and up-beat, and I still sing it occasionally with Chinese friends when we gather. When I sing it, however, I am not conscious of its origin and political connotation (like you might when singing songs such as the Internationale). The lyrics of "My Motherland" are mostly scenic descriptions, with only one line indirectly nasty ("When a friend comes, there is fine wine / When a wolf comes, a hunting gun is waiting").

I'm sure many of you often have experiences like this: a familiar melody gives you the mood to hum it regardless of its origin or the meaning of the lyrics. As such I totally believe Lang Lang's explanation: "I selected this song because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody."

If anything, this incident shows Lang Lang's innocence as an artist. He is neither cynical nor politically savvy. Apparently he did not think of the song's political origin when he chose to play it, as that is not the first concern of an artist.

This reminds me the movie "Farewell My Concubine," in which the leading role, an artist of Beijing Opera, willingly plays for a Japanese invader who loves his art. For this the artist is later deemed as a Chinese traitor and suffers gravely during the Cultural Revolution. Yet until his death he always placed his love for the art higher than politics, to quite naïve extent. This detail of the movie moved me enormously. The man's devotion to art is inseparable from his political naivety, as tragic as that is. And that's what is moving.

Those who extract political pleasure or resentment from Lang Lang's playing of "My Motherland," are savoring their own sentiment, not Lang Lang's. That is my conclusion anyway.

Did Lang Lang make a mistake by playing that song? I don't think so. I, for one, advocate an artist to choose whatever music he loves to play.

On a related note, some Chinese netizens take a great pleasure to search for hidden political meaning everywhere. As a means of entertainment, I often find such speculations fun to hear about, for example I once blogged an instance during the Beijing Olympics, see "Hidden Code in the Opening Ceremony."

A more recent example is from the 2011 New Year Chinese movie "Let the Bullets fly," in which the 6th son of the main character, a Robinhood-like hero, dies to prove his innocence. At his funeral, the first man who mourns is his 4^th blood brother. Some Chinese netizens speculate that this is the movie's hidden code for commemorating June 4^th (6/4). Borrowing a Chinese cliché, this is something that "exists if you believe; doesn't exist if you don't." (信则有，不信则无)

But in most cases speculations are just that – speculations. In Lang Lang's case, there is little point for the media to take the speculation seriously, much less to blow it out of proportion.

And I second Lang Lang's call: Don't politicize art.

Update 1/25: James Fallows – "Sample convincing/exasperated detail, about the Korean War movie that introduced the song: 'This movie was like.. when my mother was two years old.'"

2010 and the Cultural Revolution

2011-01-20T21:05:00.006-05:00

I haven't had the time to post much lately, too busy working on a memoir. But the latest issue of Remembrance (in Chinese) has something worth noting. As a New Year tradition, the magazine lists ten things that happened in the previous year related to the Cultural Revolution. Below are a few highlights from the 2010 list:

In January 2010, media reported that the Chongqing City government approved inclusion of the Red Guard Cemetery in the list of protected historical relics. This news brought lots of reporters to visit the Cemetery. (I've written about Chongqing's Red Guard Cemetery in a personal essay "Swimming with Mao.")

Left: Liu Yuan; Right: Mao Xinyu

On July 20, 2010, General Liu Yuan conferred the rank of Major General to Mao Xinyu. This news caused a big stir in and outside China, because Mao Xinyu is Chairman Mao Zedong's grandson, while Liu Yuan is the son of Liu Shaoqi. Once China's President, Liu Shaoqi died miserably in 1969 under harsh treatment from Mao. The Chinese internet dubbed that the recent conferring of rank between descendants of the two bloody enemies was a long plotted "reconciliation" scheme.

In October 2010, Southern Weekend published a series of articles about Red Guards apologizing to their victims (teachers). The reports stirred up various reactions on the Chinese internet, including praise and criticism alike. There was an opinion that, those Red Guards who beat up their teachers were products of the teachers' teaching, thus the question "who are qualified to receive the apologies." The arguments attracted broad attention.

(P.S. Perhaps the list should also include the UK Education Secretary Michael Gove's moronic analogy to China's Cultural Revolution.)

A Boxer-Murder Mystery in Hainan: Part 4

2011-01-09T20:22:00.008-05:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation, continued from Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 / 阅读中文原文]

"No fears, I can guide you there," an onlooker volunteered. "Just you alone, no others." The man said he knew a secret path into George's old residence. Karl followed the man without hesitation. Elder Wu, who noticed our uncertain expression, said with a smile, "Rest assured. Poison snakes don't bite their master."

Karl and Elder Wu

Soon Karl appeared on the other side of the wall, in the old cottage. He ran up and down the building excitedly, putting a finger by his lips to shush us. Situ shook his head, "Oh my God, I don't recognize him anymore. So excited!"

At lunch, Karl asked if he could go visit the Miao ethnic villages in the Five Finger Mountains. Elder Zhou smiled knowingly: "You really want to go? It's very far, the road's not good." Karl said firmly, "I very much want to go!" Elder Zhou replied with alacrity that he would make arrangement.

He then told me the story.

In 1915, in the Five Finger Mountains, the Miao ethnic foreman of Nanmao named Chen Riguang was injured by a wild boar while hunting. The situation was severe: the entire skin of Chen's face was peeled off. Because of the difficulties of transportation, the Five Finger Mountains area had always been the most backward and poorest place in Hainan, where no medical treatment was available. The Miao villagers brought Chen to Jiaji's Christian gospel hospital, where he received free treatment and Christian preaching. After he was cured, Chen Riguang returned to his Miao village and broadcasted the benefits of Christianity. His story won the Miao people over. From then on, Miao people often sought medical treatment in Jiaji gospel hospital, where they were also baptized and joined the church. Led by Chen Riguang, more than 300 Miao families in 30 villages of Nanmao and Zhongping abandoned their traditional shrines and incense burning to become Christians. At the time, all those villages elected their own elders and ministers, and set up simply constructed thatch churches for services.

Meanwhile, George and other missionaries from Jiaji opened schools and simple clinics in those Miao villages, sending teachers and hospital staff who took turns going in the mountains. This improved the living quality and education level of the Miao people.

After George's death, the area suffered from the chaos caused by wars. First wrecked by the Nationalist army, then plundered by the Japanese, the Miao villages' simple churches were being destroyed, villagers being killed, and services virtually stopped. After liberation, services gradually resumed but were again prohibited during the Cultural Revolution. It was not until the 1980s that services started again.

After hearing Elder Zhou's description, Situ added that Karl's grandmother had often mentioned the name Chen Riguang, and she very much wanted to know how Chen and his descendants were doing, whether the Miao villagers of Nanmao still believed in Christianity. Karl hoped to fulfill his grandmother's wish in this trip.

Elder Zhou promised he would contact the elders in Nanmao shortly and take Karl over by car the next morning. Hearing this, Karl looked as joyful as a child.

Because my husband and I needed to return Haikou for something else, we had to leave Karl and Sutu in Elder Zhou's care. About 3 pm, we said good bye in the hall of Sofitel Hotel. Karl was reluctant to part; he hugged me and kept saying "Thank you, thank you very much!"

Situ said, "Karl originally just wanted to find some information about Jiaji Church through Doctor Cai and friends, he didn't expect a trip so perfect, therefore he's very surprised, very pleased! He says after he returns home he will tell the story to all his friends, and they'll all feel happy for him. He says he will come here again with his wife and children. He says you should visit America when you get a chance, he will show you around. He lives near Disney in Los Angeles."

"Therefore," I mimicked Situ, "we will visit him for sure."

Several days later, Elder Zhou phoned to give us the follow-up.

The day after we left, they departed from Jiaji at 7 am, in the car driven by Elder Zhou. The car bumped along the mountain roads for four and a half hours to reach Nanmao's Miao ethnic villages. "It is a really beautiful place, you should go see it. They built a formal Christian church in 1986, very handsome."

But they did not find Chen Riguang's offspring. Villagers said the Chen family might have been exterminated by Japanese in 1939. That year, the Japanese army killed over 2000 Miao people there.

Before that, Chen Riguang had become heterodox. He had set up a temple in the Diaoluo Mountain area, believing in God, worshiping images, performing chicken divining, and venerating spirits, all at the same time.

Today, the Nanmao area has over 200 Christians – all are Miao people.

I thanked Elder Zhou for all the trouble he'd taken for Karl and Situ. "Nine hours back and forth, plus sending them back to Haikou, that was a lot!"

Elder Zhou said, "It was nothing, we were in a car after all. In George's time they did it all by foot; I heard it'd take half a month. That really was a lot! This trip moved me very much. They had done so much hard work back then!"

Karl's grandparents must be gratified to know this.
(The End)

The Paris Commune Revisited

2011-01-07T13:38:00.004-05:00

A French journalist Amanda Morrow, after reading my essay "The Wall of the Paris Commune" (Divide, 2005), interviewed me on the phone last week. Her article "Truth buried as Paris cemetery sculpture is mistook for famous wall" appeared on the website of Radio France International's English section today. I learned something new about the history of the Paris Commune through her writing.

As a side note, in the part she quoted me, there is a tiny misunderstanding (this is not a big deal; it's just my writer's fussy nature that drives me to make a correction). When I visited Paris in 2004, the official map of the Père Lachaise I bought at the cemetery gate did not have two points referencing the Commune. It mentioned only one. In fact, it was the map seller who told me that Chinese visitors had been seeing two different spots.

In the interview I also told Morrow that I liked the relief sculpture titled "Victimes des Révoluntions" very much. It is a beautiful sculpture with the beautiful concept that it is devoted to all victims of revolutions, regardless of the side they took.

Victimes des Révolunt (photo by me, 2004)

A Boxer-Murder Mystery in Hainan: Part 3

2011-01-02T13:04:00.011-05:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation, continued from Part 1 and Part 2 / 阅读中文原文]

I couldn't help but asking in a gossipy whisper: "The man behind us is George's grandson! How come you are not more excited to see him? Does he evoke any old memories? Does he look like his grandfather?" Elder Wu turned his face to me, eyes limpid and calm: "What kind of things have I not seen at this age? What's there to be excited about? Here you go, a castor leaf for you to block the sun."

I don't know whether I will live to 92, or if I did, whether I would no longer feel excited about anything. In any case I haven't woken to such a state in my current life. I trotted back to Situ and told him what Elder Wu said. Eloquent as Situ was, he stammered with widening eyes, "Therefore Elder Wu, he, he…" "Yes! Therefore hurry up, go tell Karl!" Watching Situ and Karl catching up with Elder Wu, Elder Zhou smiled tolerantly, "Disorder! I had planned to tell you guys at lunch."

Elder Zhou explained that now "the land of George's old residence no longer belonged to the church. After it was confiscated by the government, it became the property of the Tropical Plant Sciences Institute. Through our efforts, the Institute agreed not to destroy George's residence, but preserve it as a cultural relic. But the land is not ours and we don't have the right to go in at will, not to mention maintenance. Karl won't be happy to hear this. I had planned to let Elder Wu talk about the old days with Karl at lunch, to cheer him up."

At the gate of the Tropical Plant Sciences Institute, the elders negotiated our way in. After passing a dirt ridge buried in wild glasses, Elder Wu pointed – through switch-grass taller than us – at the faintly visible outline of George's old residence. Karl immediately began to push his way into the messy grass. Elder Wu said nothing. Elder Zhou hurriedly stopped Karl's advance: "Absolutely not! There are poison snakes!"

Poison snakes? We all turned our eyes to Elder Wu, who silently continued walking. We followed him to the Institute's residential compound, and realized that this was only one wall away from George's old residence. My husband found a good viewpoint and led Karl to it. Karl compared the house with the photo in his hand and nodded happily: "Yes! Yes!" The old cottage looked exactly like the photo; the years that passed had not left a significant mark on it. White wall, black roof, vermillion beams, arch gate, winding corridor, hollowed-out rails, all were intact. Only the residents were gone, leaving the building to luxuriant grasses.

George's residence, 2010 photo

George's residence, old photo

This was once George's path to home from church

At our side, Elder Wu talked softly, "I often played with Karl's father in the front garden. I taught him the Hainan dialect, he taught me hymns. I was six and he was seven. George was killed at the landing of the staircase in that building. I saw him lying there covered in blood."

"Do you know who killed him?" I asked. The old man said it was unclear, but people later figured it must have been a thief who did it. The Church was newly built; school, hospital, church, bell tower, everything was so perfect. In a small town like this, the cottage was as beautiful as a royal palace. It must have been someone who coveted, trying to steal something valuable. That night George returned home from the church and met his killer at the door. The killer was never caught. Nobody took care of those things then. The government didn't care either.

"Couldn’t it have been a heretic who did it?"

"Couldn't be," Elder Zhou replied firmly. "There were no Taoists here, only a small number of vegetarian Buddhists. It was 2000 years since Buddhism came in China? Buddhist culture had long permeated into every social class. People here had the custom of placing a statue of the village god at the entrance of their village, pasting a drawing of the god of wealth on their door, or worshiping the kitchen god by their stove, every now and then lighting up incense and kowtowing. This was just a tradition; many people actually did not know what Buddhism really is. Furthermore, Buddhism forbids killing. Most likely it was an unsuccessful thief who was recognized by George that had the murderous intention."

"Where is George's body? Was it buried here?"

"No. George's wife had wanted to bring her husband's body back to America, but then Hainan had neither civilian airplanes nor a crematorium. It was not practical. In the end, Hainan's Christians put together some money, transported the body to Haikou, and buried it near the then military airport. This location was also chosen for future convenience so that, if an opportunity presented itself, George's bones could return home.

"In 1939, the Japanese army occupied Hainan Island. They prospected and found out there were rare earth mineral resources on the island. In order to plunder the mineral resources, the Japanese expanded Hainan's highway and the military airport. George's tomb was thus destroyed and all trace lost."

"How regrettable! What about this old residence? Could the church take it back? George was the founder of Jiaji Church. Could this matter be solved through Hainan's Christian Association? After all, the building is being wasted here; it can be used as the church's library or museum. You guys can build a small path through the dirt ridge, completely separate from the Tropical Plant Institute. "

"Good suggestion. We can try."

When I was talking with the two elders, Karl kept silent. Situ did not translate either. Perhaps the content of our conversation had been repeatedly discussed among Karl and his family, perhaps he no longer minded the truth and consequences; he just wanted to touch his ancestor’s house with his own hand.

Karl said softly, "I want to go in."

"What?"

"I want to go in."

"But, poison snakes!" (to be continued here)

UK Wants a "Cultural Revolution Just Like the One They've Had in China"

2010-12-29T12:27:00.004-05:00

Just saw this from Shanghaiist: UK Education Secretary Michael Gove: Time for a "cultural revolution just like the one they’ve had in China".

I can't quite describe my feeling. Words fail me at a moment like this. So let me just point out one eerie thing: Mr. Gove appears to be very well suited for the role of "Cultural Revolution" education secretary. During that wondrous period, you know, uneducated people took over the leadership of China's educational system. Universities were closed to the public for 10 years. High schools closed for 6 years. Elementary and middle schools closed for 3 years. Not to mention libraries were sealed and books were burned. I can see why Mr. Gove thinks this was definitely the cause of China's academic success today.

Great. Let’s watch the UK have at it!

A Boxer-Murder Mystery in Hainan: Part 2

2010-12-26T17:11:00.032-05:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation, continued from Part 1 / 阅读中文原文]

A brief history of Christianity in China before I go further: Catholics first entered China in the 7th century; now there are about four million Catholics in the country, commonly distributed in the suburbs around cities big and small. Protestants entered China in early 19^th century; their missionaries often settled in remote and backward areas. Many never returned home, but became common residents of villages, unknown to the public. They struggled to make a living in adverse conditions, just like the locals, until they died and were buried in the wilderness. Along the Yunnan-Tibet, Yunnan-Burma, and Sichuan-Tibet borders, I've often seen tombstones like this: "Allen Thompson, English missionary, 1805-1886." Currently China has about ten million Protestants.

A little after 10 am, we arrived at the town of Jiaji, in Qiong Hai city’s jurisdiction. I hadn't been here for four or five years, and was a bit surprised by its change. The rural dirt roads had developed into a four-lane asphalt highway. The farm fields on the roadside had changed into beautiful residential enclaves. Carrefour and Kentucky Chicken replaced farmers markets. Four- or five-star hotels neatly lined up.

Situ asked: "Therefore each year the Boao Forum for Asia (博鳌亚洲论坛会) is held here? Didn't Ms. Clinton stay here a few days ago?" I laughed: "You are a China Hand! Even this you have heard. Who knows, tonight you guys might stay in the same hotel Hillary did." "That's impossible," Situ said, "we booked the hotel online. It's an average one, about 700 yuan." He took out the receipt to show me – it was exactly the Sofitel Hotel where Hillary had been! Situ laughed loudly: "Therefore Hainan people are really fortunate! In Beijing hotels of this caliber would cost two or three thousand yuan a night."

All the way Situ carefully translated our conversation for Karl, who smiled and nodded, saying little. I pointed out to Karl the road sign for Jiaji; he straightened himself on his seat, looking serious, even a bit nervous, and murmured, "A beautiful little town." Was he surprised by the place where his grandfather had once lived? More than 80 years had passed, the then barren hills and dearth of water changing into a splendid land. Jiaji had been a remote village that took an ox cart several weeks of travel from Haikou; now it is basically not much different from Sanya or Haikou. It does have a unique location: at the mouth of the Wanquan River where it flows into the ocean. The location gives Jiaji a rare, long, fine white-sand beach and world-top Golf courses. Indeed it would be hard to imagine what it looked like in the 1920s.

Had we not first contacted the Jiaji Church through the Hainan Christian Association, it would be very hard to find the church building. On the blurred old photo in Karl's hand, Jiaji Church, in classic European-style, stands out from the surrounding low, shabby peasant houses. But when we reached it – in the direction pointed to by passers-by, through a side-door of Jiaji People's Hospital, round a corner between the hospital and a middle school – we had not expected the church to be so fragmentary and not particularly noticeable.

Taking no time to exchange pleasantries with the ministers and elders who came to welcome him, Karl went straight ahead to compare the building with the photo in his hand, puzzlement fully written in his face.

Jiaji Church, built in 1924, photo taken 2010

Karl compares Jiaji Church to an old photo

Elder Zhou of Jiaji Church hurriedly explained that, after liberation [in 1949], the church hospital and school were confiscated by the government, the staff members dismissed, believer services prohibited, and the church itself became the county government office.

The church hospital, which for a while became a storage room of the local "supply and marketing cooperative" (供销社), is now the patient records and statistics office of Jiaji People's Hospital. The church school has been changed into Jiaji middle school. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards destroyed the church's tall bell tower. The current bell tower is a rebuild after the government allowed the restarting of church services in 1982. For various reasons, the rebuilt tower is 5 meters lower than the original one.

The original green land in front of the church no longer exists, replaced by residential buildings for the hospital employees and the church office. The once handsome old church had been nearly buried by those big ugly modern buildings.

I was worried that Karl might cry. Fortunately he didn't, only his face reddened. He walked unstably as if on clouds, round and round the church. In this mild morning of late autumn, the American Karl sweated profusely, wetting his T-shirt.

After carefully making two rounds through the inside and outside of the church, Karl wanted to climb up the bell tower. Elder Zhou hurriedly explained again that this isn't the original tower, there isn't any bell in it, and the staircase is very narrow and hard to climb. Karl looked at me and said softly, "I want to go!" I suggested that we all step aside, just let Karl go there with Situ. Perhaps he needed a little time alone. Hearing Situ's translation, Karl said nothing, giving only a slight pat on my shoulder.

The two stayed on the bell tower for about 20 minutes.

About noon, a church staff retrieved from a storage room four pieces of wooden signs made in the 1920s, when the church was built. He said that, as the only antiques surviving the Cultural Revolution, these were carefully preserved. Karl let Situ translate the texts on the signs. Although Situ could read some Chinese, he had a hard time translating “真理接圣神”“音从云汉来”“福自天堂降” and“福音传天国”. His unintelligible mumbling amused the audience. Karl laughed, too.

Karl took out another photo, and said that's the cottage his grandfather had lived in. "Is it still here?" he asked. Elder Zhou replied it might still be, but to be sure we must ask the oldest man, Elder Wu.

As soon as the 92-year-old Elder Wu appeared, he astounded all of us. Men of longevity are not rare in Hainan; I've met quite a few more than a hundred years old. But seeing one over 90 with such a clear mind, straight back, black hair, vigorous spirit, and fleet feet, was a first time for me.

Elder Wu suggested we take a short cut. "It's closer, but the trail is a bit hard to walk. Wait for us here if you are tired," he said caringly. I had to trot to keep pace with his steps. I asked if he knew what happened over 80 years ago. Elder Wu said evenly, "I was the closest playmate of Karl's father, his only playmate still alive. I witnessed George's death." My mouth opened and closed like a goldfish short of water. (To be continued here)

A Boxer-Murder Mystery in Hainan: Part 1

2010-12-20T09:39:00.019-05:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation, 阅读中文原文]

Hainan, China – One evening near the end of November, I got a call from Beijing. My friend DL asked if I could help an American trace his ancestor in Hainan.

DL's friend, Doctor Cai, who practices Chinese medicine in the US, is the nephew of Chen Lifu and Chen Guofu, brothers of one of the "four big families" in Nationalist China. Many of Doctor Cai's patients are Americans fond of Chinese traditional culture. Every year, a portion of those follow Doctor Cai to visit China, hoping to learn about this age-old and mystical country through first-hand experience.

This November, as usual, Doctor Cai brought a dozen or so Americans to Beijing. After the group activities were finished, all but one returned to the US. Karl, a Los Angeles real estate developer, stayed for a reason.

DL told me that, in the late Qing Dynasty, Karl's grandfather came to China as a missionary. He was murdered by Boxers in a Hainan town called Jiaji (加积镇). At the time, Karl's father was only seven years old. Karl's grandmother brought three children back to America, and never visited China again. This time, Karl was determined to find the church in which his grandfather had preached. However, the only clue he had were two old black-and-white photos from the 1920s. My friend asked if I knew anyone in Jiaji who could help.

I told her I'd be willing to take the American to Jiaji myself. It was an exceptional situation and I ought to help. DL was very pleased. She offered to send me travel money; I politely declined.

"Just one thing," I said, "I hope this has nothing to do with politics. I'm sick of those things. American politicians take China as their hypothetical enemy, always bullying us. We Chinese are like what Mao said, being behind leaves us vulnerable to attack. I better stay away from what I can't fight." DL told me not to worry. "Dr. Cai is a Taiwanese who loves China very much. Although he has taken U.S. citizenship, every year he brings Americans to Beijing and Shanghai, to show them the real China, a country in development. He too thinks the US government misleads American people about China."

Three days later, Karl arrived in Haikou, accompanied by his friend Situ Keli. Karl looked a bit old, very kind, gentle, low-key, and non-talkative. I couldn't imagine how he did real estate business in a place like Los Angeles. Situ was a lot more active and looked like a typical Chinese-speaking foreign businessman. Although his Chinese had a queer tune, by half hearing plus half guessing, I was able to have a basic understanding of what he said.

Around 9 am next morning, we started the trip to Jiaji town in Qionghai city’s jurisdiction, over 100 kilometers away from Haikou. My husband drove; I tour-guided. The two Americans looked out the car window and exclaimed, "Wow, Haikou is so tidy, beautiful and warm! Very much like Hawaii." I tried to be modest, "No way it's comparable to Hawaii. Hainan is one of the most backward provinces in China. In ancient times it was known as a remote destination for sending people into exile. Not until the 1980s did it become a province, and today is still a third-rate place. Only in the recent one or two years is Haikou having a bit of development."

Our car got on the highway. Situ and I exchanged questions; Karl sat quietly and listened. Now and then he took pictures of the coconut trees and farm fields flashing across the window.

Situ liked to start a sentence with "therefore": "Therefore why did you come here from Chongqing? Why are you settled here?"

I told him that I liked the backwardness of Hainan. "It has the atmosphere of a European small town. At street corners are casually placed coffee seats; locals wear a silly smile all the time. Eat a bit of pastry, drink a cup of tea, and make a little business along the way. Though not for getting rich, there's plenty of contentment and leisure. It suits my life style."

"Now my question for you," I said, "I'm sure many Chinese would ask: why do you have the Chinese name Situ Keli?"

"Therefore you think this name is strange? Ha ha, indeed many people think it's amusing. Actually it's just because my last name is Strickler, therefore a Beijing friend gave me a similar-sounding Chinese name. I have been living in China for a long time, therefore my Chinese is okay. Karl and I are friends of 35 years, therefore this time I accompany him as his one-time interpreter."

He then asked, "Therefore do you want to hear Karl's story?"

"Of course. Please tell!"

In 1904, American Presbyterian missionary Karl George came to a Hainan town, Jiaji. While he proffered the Bible and preached, he donated medicine. Through his effort and an American church's support, in the town of Jiaji a church hospital and a school were built. The locals could see doctors and go to the school for free. George became acquainted with an American girl who worked for the church school. They fell in love, married, and had children.

In 1924, Jiaji Church was built. The same year, George was killed by Boxers. He was 49. George's wife took the three children, including Karl's father, then seven, back to America.

Karl's father spent his first seven years in Jiaji, had a carefree childhood, and spoke the local dialect fluently. When Karl was young, he often heard his grandmother and father mention the faraway Jiaji, Hainan, China. They taught him the 1920s hymn and obscure Hainan dialect; they showed him old photos of where his grandfather had worked and lived for twenty years.

For various reasons, they never returned to China again. Karl's grandmother died 38 years ago, his father 18 years ago. On his shoulder was the wish of two generations.

Karl was 59. He had four sons and a daughter. He hoped to find his grandfather's footsteps in Jiaji, Hainan, China, and later bring his family to visit.

As soon as Situ stopped talking, my husband questioned, "Are you sure he was killed by Boxers? The Boxer movement was in Qing Dynasty, which had been gone in 1924. Sounds impossible."

Situ sighed: "Therefore someone else has said so. But China was in chaos then, therefore Karl's grandmother was probably confused." He speculated that, perhaps Karl's grandmother had heard that Boxer killings were aimed at Christians, therefore mistook it as such a case. It might be that local heretics did it. Because there were many Buddhists and Taoists in rural China then, wouldn't it be possible that they murdered George because of their hatred toward the foreign Christian?

I thought that possibility was small. Besides the fact that Buddhism itself came from a foreign country, both Buddhists and Taoists were non-extreme, mild people. Their doctrines stress concepts such as treating others with kindness, accumulating virtue, good people rising to heaven and bad people going down to hell, and so on. A hatred-murder was unlikely also because George was doing charity work and got along with locals well. So I was inclined to think it might have been an accident. (To be continued here)

American Conspiracy in China – A Review for Rock Paper Tiger

2010-12-04T22:08:00.008-05:00

Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann, Soho Press, $25, hardcover

Reviewed by Bob Eberlein

Lisa Brackmann has put out a terrific thriller that runs us around China on an adventure including sightseeing, espionage, terrorism, torture and, of course, art. Rock Paper Tiger is the never-boring, fast moving story of a woman wounded in Iraq finding unexpected refuge in China, only to have the nightmares of the Iraq war revisit her.

It starts with the innocuous meeting of Ellie, the protagonist, with her occasional boyfriend Lao Zhang, and a Uygur man from Xinjiang who some believe is a terrorist. The meeting itself would never have happened but that Ellie’s cell phone ran out of money. That small failure in life management is pretty typical for Ellie. An encounter with an IED in Iraq has also left her with a leg that causes constant pain and a disposition that is often downright skittish. Those bits of her characters, along with the general impulsiveness that seems to be her trademark, lead Ellie into lots of trouble very quickly.

From Beijing, to Taiyuan, to Xian, to Chengdu, and finally to Treasure Chicken Village is a quick little tour of China. Each segment has a different motivation: fleeing, seeking, hiding, compulsion; all drive Ellie around the country. There are Americans in suits and Chinese in and out of uniform after her. With only a vague understanding of what they want, Ellie must do her best to avoid them, while also trying to get hold of Lao Zhang, who is nowhere to be found.

Running in parallel with the physical travel around China is the back story of Ellie’s time in Iraq, and the failed marriage that brought her to China. We also get to delve into an online game that is used for pleasure and conspiratorial communication.

In addition to be a good page turner with pointed reflections on social and individual responsibilities, Rock Paper Tiger sets itself apart by the stimulating comparison of abuse of power between the agents of the American and Chinese hegemons. I will not mince words, both are portrayed in a pretty grim manner, and neither is a stranger to violence. The priorities and rationales for that brutality are distinct, except that both involve protection against a perceived existential threat. It does not, of course, occur to those involved in snuffing out these threats that their own actions are probably as destructive as anything they are trying to stop. On the contrary, every person upholding some national goal is righteously convinced that he (yes they are all men) is doing the right thing.

There are vivid descriptions of places in China and a few ins and outs of the culture, thinking and language of people in modern China, which give the novel a nice flavor. Those excellent descriptions tend to overshadow the parts of the stories set in Iraq. Apart from the weather and the profusion of explosions and torture, those parts could have been set most anywhere in America. That, however, is consistent with Ellie’s personality and experience. I have no trouble believing that some people enter a country never to really see it. The interesting question is whether one of those people can enter another country and become engaged with it. That is certainly what happens to Ellie.

There is also a curious religious theme in the book, though it does not seem to be completely tied together. A friend of mine once made the interesting observation that in times of dyer need people can find, or lose, religion. For Ellie it was definitely the latter, while for her estranged husband it was the former.

Perhaps the terrific pacing through the entire book spoiled me, but when I got to the end, I was a little disappointed. While tying everything up in a bow is nice for a whodunit novel, it is not as necessary for a what-the-hell book. There are lots of things that could have been left unsaid to better effect. And though I do like it when the protagonist recognizes her own responsibility for creating the problems she is struggling with, in this case I think that acceptance of responsibility is a bit over the top.

Rock Paper Tiger is a fun read with a dark side. Definitely worth considering.

A Chinese Immigrant Reads Yiyun Li

2010-10-20T12:17:00.008-04:00

The China Beat, commentary, Xujun Eberlein, published: October 18, 2010

Editor's Note: Among the twenty-three people who received MacArthur Fellowships last month was Yiyun Li, a fiction writer based at the University of California, Davis. Born and raised in Beijing before coming to the United States for graduate work (first in immunology, later in creative writing), Li is one member of a growing community of Chinese authors now writing in English. We asked Xujun Eberlein, also part of that group, to reflect on Li’s writing.

I first encountered Yiyun Li’s work in the fall of 2003, in the form of “Immortality,” a longish short story published in The Paris Review that was the first piece of writing by her to make a splash in the literary world. It is about the ups and downs of a Chinese man who is born with a face resembling Mao’s. He makes good use of his unusual feature and enjoys a fortunate life when others are suffering during the Cultural Revolution, but becomes a loser in the post-Mao era. Coming from an area that produced many eunuchs for the imperial court, the man castrates himself in the end.

In that story, Li’s English could well be mistaken for a native speaker’s, with only the Chinese content belying that perception. I was impressed by her language, but not the content. The narrative is loaded with knowledge common to Chinese that might be unfamiliar to Americans, and the Chinese clichés overwhelm the story the author is trying to tell. To me, it gave the impression that the story, loud as could be, was relying mainly on foreign oddities — not to mention a gimmicky ending — to appeal to American readers. While there’s nothing wrong with an immigrant writer taking advantage of the information discrepancy between two countries (I do the same), a good literary work must offer insights into the human condition regardless of the reader’s familiarity with cultural backstories. But “Immortality” says nothing new to a Chinese immigrant like me. In all fairness, it is not a bad story, but hardly a great one to my Chinese eye. The writing, though fluent, lacked the natural and unrestrained strokes displayed by some other immigrant writers I was reading at the time, such as the Nigerian-born author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Nonetheless, “Immortality” showed promise and it went on to win Li the Plimpton Prize for New Writers, the first in a long string of top literary prizes lining up to crown her works.

Shortly after that, another story of Li’s, “Extra,” appeared in The New Yorker. Its main character, a widowed Chinese woman in her 50s, falls in (sexual) love with a six-year-old boy in the nursery where she works. At first I was glad to see that, unlike the previous story, this one wasn’t overloaded with common Chinese knowledge. However a doubt soon arose in my mind: could the author write without relying so much on gimmicky oddities? Toward the end of “Extra,” the protagonist, fired by the nursery, puts all her money (about 3000 Yuan) in a lunch pail, which she holds in her hand. On her way out of the nursery, she is robbed by a man who grabs her duffel bag and runs away. Shocked to have been mugged yet relieved to still have her small fortune, she “sits on the street and hugs the lunch pail to herself.” Next, this line caught my eye:

Hungry as people are, it is strange that nobody ever thinks of robbing an old woman of her lunch.

What a sharp observation! Now that is an insight into human nature. The line sheds a whole new light on the story; it made me thump the table. This writer is up to something, I thought.

During the next a few years I read more of Li’s short stories and personal essays here and there, in magazines and newspapers. While I shook my head at some of her essays, I nodded more often with her fiction. Increasingly in her stories, the role of foreignness (or the use of Chinese information) moved from serving as the main attraction to being an unobtrusive prop, helping mold the characters who, like Li’s language, began to display a subtle complexity. The early loudness in Li’s narration was also fading into dispassionate observation.

One of my favorite pieces of hers is a story titled “The Proprietress,” which was published in a 2005 issue of Zoetrope: All-Story. The protagonist is a private businesswoman in her late sixties who lives next to a county jail and collects hapless wives and children of prisoners into her own house. The contradiction in the character’s personality, the co-existence of kindness and self-righteousness, the simultaneous desires to help and to control, is at the same time unbelievable and true. I was once again impressed by the author’s discerning eye in observing human nature; whether the character is Chinese or not no longer mattered.

As much as I was impressed by Yiyun Li’s writing, however, some public behavior of hers made me wary. The Chinese say, “The writing is like the writer.” I had always believed the wisdom of that saying while in China, but it seemed less true about many writers here (or perhaps just now).

From December 2005 to spring 2006, major papers — the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others — made a big deal of the fact that Yiyun Li’s petition for permanent residency in the United States on the grounds of “extraordinary ability in the arts” had been denied by the Immigration Services, even though Li had requested many big-name authors to provide testimonials to her “extraordinary ability.” Li turned to the press and more writers for further support.

The fuss in the media struck me as over the top. Numerous Chinese students have successfully gone through the normal immigration process after graduation: first find a job, then obtain a green card through that employer. Li certainly had no trouble getting a teaching job. I didn’t know what made her so keen to get the special visa instead of going through the normal process — I’m sure she had her reasons. After all, she has talked more than once about her longing for America since childhood. But to take the matter to the press and — as a writer friend put it — make it sound like she was a victim? And to publicly involve many other writers who hardly knew her? The seeming egoism of the whole matter certainly contradicted Li’s description of herself as an “always shy and private” person. Was gaining too much of a name at a young age going to have a negative impact on Li’s writing as well?

But Li proved to be exceptional as a writer. It seems that her curiosity about human nature, more than anything else, plays a dominant role in the evolution of her writing. I once read an interview with her in the Michigan Quarterly Review, as part of a special issue on China where my own personal essay “On Becoming an American” also appears. When answering a question about her literary influences, Li speaks of William Trevor:

He doesn’t carry a message in his writing, he’s an observer, and I like that because I know so many writers who are not observers but who have an agenda. He doesn’t have an agenda, he’s just very curious about human beings. I share that curiosity and I share his interest in the mysteries of human nature.

This deeply resonates with me as a fiction writer: writing without an agenda other than an interest in human nature. I suspect it is William Trevor’s influence that has made Li’s transition from her early ethnic-driven fiction to a more universal exploration of human nature.

Li’s writing is getting more mature in recent years and she goes ever deeper into her characters’ insides, even though some of them no longer sound Chinese to me. That is much less a problem, I think, than a story holding true ethnically but lacking inspiration and universal resonance. A story of Li’s published in a 2008 issue of the New Yorker, for example, portrays a gay man who has lived in the US for two decades before returning to Beijing for good and obeying his widowed mother’s wish for him to marry a female student of hers. Knowing the much less favorable social conditions for homosexuals in China, this character’s behavior does not ring true to me. Nonetheless, the different — yet somehow shared — loneliness of the three characters in the story is rendered in such intimate detail and emotional depth, and in such markedly dispassionate language, that I was practically swallowed by their moods. The characters, though Chinese, seem to have transcended their ethnicity. In comparison, Ha Jin, another heavyweight Chinese immigrant author who writes in English, has repeatedly claimed that loneliness is the biggest burden of an immigrant, yet that remains a claim he has never made me feel intimately in his characters.

Coincidentally, Li’s early literary talent was first celebrated by The Paris Review, the same magazine that first published Ha Jin. Unfortunately, after Ha Jin went on to win the 1999 National Book Award for his excellent novel Waiting, his later works such as The Crazed and A Free Life have disappointed. I don’t know if the fame of a top literary award played a role in this deterioration, but I’m happy to see that Yiyun Li seems to be on a different path. I look forward to reading her new collection, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl.

The Unbearable Lightness of Nobel Prize Jokes

2010-10-14T14:57:00.019-04:00

In my childhood, during the CR, there were no fun books to read, so one of my great entertainment pleasures was to tell and retell international political jokes. These were jokes I heard from others, or read in Reference News (参考消息,a Party newspaper my parents subscribed to). The subjects mocked by those jokes were, almost exclusively, the United States and the Soviet Union. Sometimes the jokes were so clever and funny my playmates and I would roll around on the ground laughing. Nobody then would have imagined that one day China itself could become a subject of political jokes.

In the vociferous reactions to this year's Nobel Peace Prize, there is a lighter side: a number of political jokes have been circulating on overseas Chinese websites. The following is my translation of one of those.

CNN:  Mr. Wen, may I ask what is your opinion on dissident Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

Wen Jiabao:  Really? I have browsed many websites, but I haven't seen this news!

CNN:  Have any Chinese won a Nobel Prize? 

Wen: Yes, but they hold foreign citizenship. (Samuel C. C. Ting, Yuan T. Lee, Steven Chu, Daniel C. Tsui, Roger Yonchien Tsien)

CNN:   Have any Chinese citizens won a Nobel Prize?

Wen:  Yes, but they are ROC citizens.  (Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang)

CNN:  Has a citizen of New China won a Nobel Prize?

Wen: Yes, but he doesn't recognize his Chinese citizenship. (Gao Xingjian)

CNN:  Has any person who recognizes his Chinese citizenship won a Nobel Prize?

Wen: Yes, but we don't recognize him as a citizen of China. (Dalai Lama)

CNN:  Has any person who recognizes his citizenship of New China, and is also recognized as a citizen by the state, won a Nobel Prize?

Wen: Yes, but he is in a prison of New China. 

It's hard to deny the cleverness used in the construction of this joke. In my circle of Chinese friends and acquaintances, a few feel it's funny and laugh (I am guilty of being one of these), but most don't. I have expected that some of the friends would not be enthusiastic about Liu Xiaobo, still I am a bit surprised by the overwhelming reaction, which is sadness. And their sadness makes my heart heavy. I suppose their reaction is not really to the joke per se, but rather about the whole situation. The reasons for such a reaction? "They (the West) are the judge, we are being judged!" "In a recent visit to China, I witnessed growing prosperity that changed my previous view. Just recall the unbearable poverty and hardship we lived through [during the CR]. To old friends who complain of their problems, I always ask, Do you want to go back to the old days? None can rebut. Of course problems exist, and there will only be more, but the problems are the companion of progress, gradually they will be solved." "Go your own way – let others talk!"

I want to stress that, those are real feelings, deep feelings, regardless of whatever labels you might be tempted to apply, whatever criticisms you might tempted to level. The intensity of such jolted me. I'll confess: as a fellow overseas Chinese, though one who constantly criticizes things, I feel torn by my friends' feelings. It has become emotionally difficult for me to analyze this, as I attempted before.

It seems that those friends view the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident as the West's judgmental attitude toward China. This reaction is the complete opposite from some dissidents who cheer for the West's recognition of their value. I find such a divide significant. Those friends of mine are ordinary people, mostly belonging to the middle class, a class that is also rapidly growing within China. Is the reaction of my friends representative? I don't know, but activists who aspire to change China can't afford to ignore this class and their feelings.

IMO, the leftist op-ed that is now "the talk of town" (as termed by ESWN) is a well-written but unilateral analysis of Liu Xiaobo's ideas. Personally, I agree with some of the things Liu has said, and disagree with others; that does not diminish Liu's value as a thinker in my eye . But whether you buy into the criticism of Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong or not, their op-ed does raise an important question as to how much a dissident's ideals resonate with the non-elite majority of Chinese. (I've expressed a similar concern in this space before.) The answer to that question might not be as positive as hoped by some activists and their supporters.

As to Liu Xiaobo, I found in The China Beat an article by Paulina Hartono, titled "Symbols: Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize," having something quite interesting to say. I especially want to echo this line:

"But I hope that in the years to come, Liu Xiaobo will not be seen merely as a contentious symbol, a tool utilized by various powers for condemnation or glorification purposes, but as an important human being who had something to say."

Liu Xiaobo's Detractors

2010-10-10T09:50:00.042-04:00

It is never interesting if there is only one voice on a subject, especially a hot one. The hot topic at the moment, needless to say, is the awarding to Liu Xiaobo of the Nobel Peace Prize. Outside China, acclamations can be heard everywhere, in mainstream media and on Twitter.

The interesting question: is anyone saying anything different? (The Chinese government doesn't count, and its blocking of the news and discussion is plain stupid given the 1.39 million Chinese students studying abroad and emailing constantly to their families and friends, which makes the blocking hardly effective.)

There is one tiny voice in the mainstream media that discusses the Nobel Peace Prize's possible negative consequences for the future. Interested readers might want to read Granite Studio's comment (update: and Peking Duck's).

What I find most curious is the emergence of Liu Xiabo's detractors from two opposite camps, with views that are not necessarily what I would expect.

On one side, some unhappy overseas Chinese in online forums have dug up an interview Liu Xiaobo did with a Hong Kong publication 22 years ago, in which Liu said the only way for China to make fundamental changes is to be a colony (of the West) for at least 300 years. "Hong Kong took one hundred years to become the way it is today, " Liu reportedly said, "China is so big, of course it needs three hundred years as a colony to be like Hong Kong. I even doubt if three hundred years are enough."

It is not surprising that this quote would piss off many Chinese, especially those with strong nationalist sentiments. However Liu said this in 1988, a year before the June 4^th massacre, at which time mainland Chinese intellectuals' resentment toward the government ran much higher than it does today. I myself may not view the West as highly as Liu did, but even though I disagree with this opinion, I can certainly understand where the talk came from – I was around then and said radical things as well. It is also hard to know if Liu really meant what he said; it could have simply been an emotional expression. In the same interview, he said "I very much thank the Cultural Revolution. I was a child then, I could do whatever I wanted to. Parents were gone doing the revolution. Schools ceased classes. I was able to temporarily get rid of educational procedures, and do what I wanted to do, to play, to fight, I lived happily." Does this mean he had a positive assessment of the CR? No. If you read through the context, that's just his way of talking, and can't reasonably be held against him. Similarly, he also said if his English were good enough, he would have nothing to do with China, as if he didn't care about the country, but his actions prove otherwise. His persistent and courageous fight for China's democratic future is certainly a stronger demonstration of allegiance than those spoken words.

A report from BBC Chinese.com on the four intellectuals who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen hunger strike is helpful in understanding Liu's more radical position than his three comrades. Personally, I find Hou Dejian's view resonate more: "If China's democracy and rule of law can be achieved without shedding blood and without [mass] movements on the street, that is my first wish. Even if this means it might happen more slowly, I'd be willing to let it happen a little more slowly." But Hou has quit, while Liu keeps fighting. I suspect some degree of radicalism is necessary to sustain a fighter's spirit, not to forget there's also plenty of rationality in Liu's actions. Regardless of our differences, I admire Liu's unyielding effort; China's political reform needs the constant push from brave people like him.

On the other side, the famous dissident Wei Jingsheng, who was also a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, reportedly said that many other Chinese are better qualified than Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize, because Liu is too moderate as a democracy activist and is more willing to cooperate with the Chinese government. (What a contrasting image to Liu's talk above, which apparently is still not radical enough to Wei. Does Wei think the existence of the Nobel Peace Prize is for the most extreme activists?) This opinion is not new, as a number of dissidents, besides Wei, have said similar things by openly writing to the Nobel Prize Committee twice in opposition to Liu's nomination. If these protests reflect internal struggles within the disintegrating community of the so-called "overseas Chinese democracy movement," one might ~~want to~~ ask why the two open letters and Wei Jingsheng's above speech are all posted on a Falun Gong website. Readers of my blog might remember that, in my article "China: Revolution or Reform? - A Summary of the "Charter 08" Dispute," I noted FLG's 180-degree turn from supporting to opposing "Charter 08." Given Liu Xiaobo's active involvement in Charter 08, I'm not surprised by FLG's position today against him, though it is still a mystery to me as to what was the exact cause of that dramatic change.

So that's what is curious, the fact that Liu Xiaobo, as a democracy activist, is simultaneously viewed by elements of the dissident camp as too cooperative with the government, and as extremely unpatriotic by other Chinese. His sometimes radical words and often more rational behavior make him an ever interesting character to study.

Update (10/11): An analysis by Globe Voices's Andy Lee (h/t The China Beat for the link) sheds light on Liu Xiaobo's transformation before and after the 1989 student movement, which is relevant to the discussion here:

In an essay reprinted in the website China in Perspective, Cheng Yinghong, a Chinese scholar, described this shift in Liu’s ideological orientation as from romanticism to empiricism; in style as from arrogance to humility:

如果说80年代在刘晓波的眼里，是文化传统或者一种比较超验的东西在压抑人性、人欲和自我，那么今天则是国家和政治体制这些更加直接或者容易被经验证实的因素在压抑个人。因此，对像不一样了，关怀仍然没有变。我想这大概也是把前后两个刘晓波联系在一起的线索。

[Andy Lee's translation:] In Liu Xiaobo’s eyes, if repression on the individual and human nature in the 1980s was due to cultural or transcendental reasons, then today’s repression is due to more empirical reasons such as the country’s political system. Therefore, though the targets have changed, his sympathy and humanity have not. And this is what links the two Liu Xiaobo’s together.

Remembrance 58

2010-09-30T16:29:00.006-04:00

In Issue 58 of Remembrance (in Chinese) , one of its editors Qizhi (Wu Di), who is also a historian, contrasts Western and Chinese standards and practices for writing history. Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, this very important historical volume most highly regarded by both Westerners and Chinese, would have been sentenced to death by academics in China, even in Hong Kong, says Qizhi. And he is not talking about political issues. He is talking about academic criteria for historical books and argues that there is something very wrong with those in present day China.

Bu Weihua, in "On Several Problems with Mao's Last Revolution," points out a number of mistakes, inaccuracies and improprieties in that book while expressing admiration for its achievement.

Hao Jian provides a detailed analysis of the documentary Morning Sun, on its composition style, camera language, and moral principle.

Ran Yunfei, a well-known Chengdu blogger, reviews He Shu's new book Fighting for Mao – Chongqing’s Large Armed-Fights (《为毛主席而战—文革重庆大武斗实录》).

There are much more, including the news of a book by a woman author that lauds the Cultural Revolution (which really is news to me!).

If you can read Chinese, read this issue here.

It Is the Moon Festival

2010-09-22T09:17:00.007-04:00

Today is the 15^th day of the 8^th month in the lunar calendar – the Mid-Autumn Festival, what people here call "the moon festival." If you look up at the moon tonight, chances are you'll find it the roundest, brightest of the year. When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell us that if you place a basin of clear water under the moon on this day, you'll see the jade tree and the jade rabbit in it. I tried, and I always saw a vague shape in shadow, which could be interpreted as almost anything. (Image from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070926.html)

Ancient Chinese poets seemed to have a special sentiment for the moon, as evidenced by numerous poems intoning it. One of the most well-known perhaps is Su Dongpo's "Shui Diao Ge Tou," in the form of Song ci, a rhymed verse composed of lines of three to seven characters which first appeared in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), and reached its perfection in the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279). It was 934 years ago today that Su Dongpo wrote this classic masterpiece.

Many English translations exist, however none could convey to me the sentiments wafting through the Chinese words. As an example, the following are three different translations of Su Dongpo's lines "人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全":

As translated by Tr. A. Ayling & D. Mackintosh:

Men know joy and sorow, parting and reunion;

The moon lacks lustre, brightly shines; is al, is less.

Perfection was never easily come by.

As translated by Xu Zhongjie (1986):

The moon has weather that change,

Fine or foul; it wax and shine.

Mankind is sad at parting;

Happy at reunion again.

From the utmost ancient time,

Down to our own very days,

The imperfection of all things –

Has for ever been the case.

As translated by Yang Yixian etc (2001).:

For men the grief of parting, joy of reunion,

Just as the moon wanes and waxes, is bright or dim;

Always some flaw – and so it has been since of old.

All are fine translations, but whereas the Chinese sounds extraordinary, the English makes it dull. It is not the translator. It is the damn language. This is the reason I almost never attempt to translate ancient poems – I simply can't get the succinct beauty, the exquisiteness, and the sonorous sound across. An ancient Chinese poem can make my heart tremble, but an English translation of it never does. It is not the translator. It is the damn language.

Some say a pictographic language is more primitive than an alphabetic one – or in other words, an alphabetic language is progress in civilization. Mao seemed to agree with this. I still remember a Mao quotation from my childhood: "Chinese language should go the common alphabetic direction of other countries in the world." I am glad this did not happen. I'm sure an alphabetic Chinese would never give me the joy and intimacy the square characters do.

I recently read a very enjoyable book, Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows. Her experience in learning the Chinese culture through learning the language – the frustration and triumph, the pain and pleasure, the questioning and understanding – are presented from a refreshing angle, often surprisingly so to a native Chinese speaker like me. I'd recommend this book to anyone who's new to things Chinese. In one of the chapters the author asks a legitimate question, "Why do the Chinese hang onto this difficult character-based writing system?" She points out its disadvantages: cumbersome, hard to learn, awkward to look up in dictionaries, etc. She also recognizes its merits, mainly its historical and cultural significance. I want to add a personal perspective: I think Chinese is the richest language in the world. For me, as probably for most Chinese, its merits clearly overweigh the inconveniences. (As a native speaker I actually never felt the inconveniences anyway.)

Why then, you might ask, am I writing in English now? In fact several editors who interviewed me have asked that question. The answer is: for communication. I live among English speakers and I feel the need to communicate. (If you want to know why I came to the US, the short answer is "for love." Read the story here if you are interested.) In other words, Chinese is a passion, English is a tool. Today I still prefer to read Chinese books over English ones, and in fact I can read Chinese 30 times faster.

It is a pain to love one language and use another in daily life. It causes a schism in my consciousness. But that's imperfection of life, and I accept it. Su Dongpo has said it, 此事古难全.

To Remember or Not to Remember

2010-09-14T14:31:00.004-04:00

Issue 57 of Remembrance (in Chinese) arrived yesterday, on the second anniversary of this important e-journal. The current issue focuses on the “one crackdown, three counterings” (一打三反) campaign that took place in 1970, during which a large number of innocent people and young thinkers with dissident thoughts were executed, including the extraordinary 27-year-old Yu Luoke. Today few young people in China are aware of this dark time when words and thoughts cost one’s life.

The first article in this issue by Wang Rui is titled “Zhou Enlai and the ‘One Crackdown, Three Counterings’ Campaign,” claiming it was Zhou Enlai, not Mao Zedong, who launched this cruel campaign. Another article, titled “The 40th Anniversary Memorial of Nanjing’s March 6 Public Verdict” by Fang Zifen, gives a heart-wrenching eye-witness account of the tragic day four decades ago, when 11 “counter-revolutionaries” were given a sudden death verdict in public and executed on the spot, with 100,000 people looking on. The execution was so abrupt and unexpected that the families of the victims had no means to collect the ashes, which were then forever lost. A decade later, every case was overturned – 100% wrongly executed. This is the city well known for "The Rape of Nanjing." “Now every year on December 13, Chinese mourn with deep grief those countrymen killed in the [1937] Japanese massacre, but for unknown reasons the victims of the smaller massacre on March 6, 1970 are gradually forgotten. Not me!” – The author writes. He was one of the more fortunate victims that day, getting only a life sentence.

Fang’s lamenting reminds me of a conversation I had with a Japanese several years ago. My sister and I were site-seeing Yunnan’s terraced fields around the time of the Spring Festival. One early morning we, like many other tourists, got up about 4 am trying to catch the spectacular sunrise. In the dim dawn a luxury bus of Japanese tourists arrived at the cliff we were all standing atop. The sun did not rise, and somehow I got into a chat with the nice Japanese gentleman by my side, who looked to be in his sixties. He was carrying a set of expensive-looking cameras, and spoke fluent Chinese. At the time the news had spread that the Japanese government erased from school textbooks any mention of their invasion of China during the 1930s-40s, and Chinese resentment of this was running high. I don’t remember how we got to that topic, but at one point I said, either trying to explain the sentiment, or being provocative as sometimes a journalist would do , “Japanese did lots of bad things to Chinese during the Second World War, you know.” The man replied – to my complete surprise – “Chinese did lots of bad things to Chinese too. People do bad things everywhere.”

I was tongue-tied, for a moment didn’t know how to respond. In retrospect, I was upset not only because his tone was unapologetic but also because there was a slice of truth in his words. Finally I said, “That does not excuse the Japanese atrocities.” “No it doesn’t,” he agreed.

Should the Chinese’s own killing be excused or forgotten, then? The reality is, we’ll probably never see a public mourning of those innocent people killed by their government during the 1970s.

If you can read Chinese, read the new issue of Remembrance here.

If You Can Read Chinese, Read This E-Journal

2010-09-01T13:27:00.019-04:00

The new issue of Remembrance (<记忆>) continues to review Mao’s Last Revolution (by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals; Chinese translation can be found here). The four articles in issues 55 and 56 discuss the book from different angles, with thoughtful comments and legitimate questions. All are well worth reading.

Coincidentally, nearly two years ago, it was Michael Schoenhals who had this to say about the journal (阅读中文):

Remembrance (记忆, jiyi) is an electronic journal edited by Cultural Revolution historians in China in the May 4th tradition of the joint intellectual venture that does not so much put a premium on uniformity of opinion – and even less on common party political affiliation – as on a shared desire to explore a subject without prejudice in the pursuit of historical truth. ... The journal is a Chinese venture, but in the 21st century that no longer prevents it from being a globalized one.

Schoenhals nailed the main characteristic of the e-journal precisely: it is non-partisan and it is without prejudice. One can often find opposite opinions in feature articles and readers’ letters to the editor. Meanwhile, the journal consistently provides high-quality research and well-written memoirs. For anyone who is interested in learning about the true history of China’s Cultural Revolution, or contributing to the research, Remembrance is the one reliable place to go.

Another book discussed in the current issue is Fighting for Mao – Chongqing’s Large Armed-Fights (《为毛主席而战—文革重庆大武斗实录》) by He Shu, newly published (in Chinese) by Joint Publishing (H. K.). I’ve read He Shu’s articles on this topic before, and I believe his new book is a significant contribution to the CR research. It is a valuable book to possess and I certainly am going to buy it.

Remembrance is published every two weeks. To manage in the reality of China’s internet censorship, the journal maintains a low-key, high-quality policy, and it does not have an official website in the mainland. As such I volunteered (with the editors’ permission) to host the journal on my website. I will update every two weeks as soon as the e-journal arrives in my inbox.

My only regret is that I don’t have the time to translate all the articles into English. Hopefully, as the journal content gets compiled into books, professional translations will also become available. For now, those of you who can read Chinese have the clear advantage of “a waterside pavilion getting the moonlight first.”

Related posts:

What Everyone Needs to Know about China

2010-08-26T11:39:00.011-04:00

China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Oxford University Press, USA, $16.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by Xujun Eberlein

Being surprised is something I expect from a good work of fiction, but not necessarily from nonfiction, especially when I am familiar with the subject – or so I thought.

Thus it was a treat when I found plenty of surprises in Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s new book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, such as the following passage from the section titled “What is the alternative to viewing Mao as a monster?”:

There are many alternatives to thinking of Mao as a fiend who was China’s Hitler. One useful one is to see Mao’s place in China today as comparable to that of Andrew Jackson’s in the United States. Though admittedly far from perfect, the comparison is based on the fact that Jackson is remembered both as someone who played a significant role in the development of a political organization (the Democratic Party) that still has many partisans, and as someone responsible for brutal policies toward Native Americans that are now often referred to as genocidal.

Both men are thought of as having done terrible things, yet this does not necessarily prevent them from being used as positive symbols. And Jackson still appears on $20 bills, even though Americans tend now to view as heinous the institution of slavery (of which he was a passionate defender) and the early 19th-century military campaigns against Native Americans (in which he took part).

This comparison is refreshing, and it could only come from someone who knows both American and Chinese history intimately. Admittedly, I have limited knowledge about President Andrew Jackson. Growing up in China before “reform and opening,” the most familiar images of US presidents to my generation then were Johnson and Nixon – the former a caricatured warmonger and the latter a chameleon suddenly changing from China’s number one enemy to the hero who normalized Sino-America relations to the world’s biggest scandal maker. (If you find those one-sided images laughable, perhaps it sheds some light on why many images of China commonplace in the West make no sense to Chinese.)

On the Chinese internet today, however, when searching for “President Jackson,” glorious descriptions fill my eyes: “people’s friend,” “the bank killer,” a war hero who defeated the British army, a wise politician who prevented the US from splitting apart. No mention of his not-so-glorious role in killing Native Americans. You wonder how an average internet surfer in mainland China can get a complete picture of this controversial American president.

But, before you feel fortunate to have the benefit of a free press and internet, hold on a second. Can the average American reader get the whole picture of Mao? This really depends on what you happen to read or hear. If you have only read Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s best-selling biography, Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, and see my review here), for example, then Mao was born a monster. If you have only read Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China (1937), on the other hand, then Mao was a legendary hero of the Chinese peasants. The actual Mao, of course, was a more complex historical figure than either of those works portray.

Chinese in the Tang Dynasty already understood “Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; heed only one side and you will be benighted” (兼听则明，偏听则暗), but it is never easy to consistently follow this practice. The few American writers I know of who write about China with this maxim in mind include James Fallows, Peter Hessler, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom. If you are interested in China and don’t want to be benighted or brainwashed, read books with different views before forming your opinion. Or, as a short cut, start with a book like China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. The parallel between Mao and Andrew Jackson might be imperfect, as Wasserstrom has noted, but it is a big step up from good-evil dichotomy that seems so pervasive.

In fact, one of the most appealing characteristics of Wasserstrom’s new book is that it does not sidestep controversial issues and opinions. On the contrary, it deliberately provides the reader with views from opposite sides, in a rather straightforward and balanced manner. Here’s another example. In addressing the question “How does the reputation of the [Boxer] crisis differ in China?” Wasserstrom writes:

In the West and in Japan, the Boxer Rebellion is presented as a tale of the rise and fall of a violent Chinese group. Emphasis is placed on the Boxers’ superstitious beliefs, including their notion that they could make themselves impervious to bullets and that railway tracks should be torn up to appease local gods. In China, by contrast, while the violence and superstitions of the Boxers are sometimes criticized, there is more emphasis on other aspects of the crisis, such as the grievances that led to the insurrection. These injustices included decades of foreign powers’ extending their reach into Chinese territory, and the atrocities committed during the “Invasion of the Eight Allied Armies,” including the looting of Chinese national treasures and the revenge killing of thousands of northern Chinese. In Chinese accounts now, the Boxer Protocol is described as one of many humiliating and unjustly one-sided treaties.

Perhaps no viewpoints are as starkly in contrast as those on the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” crisis. I still remember the shock, just after moving to the US, of hearing how Westerners view the Boxers as nothing more than a frenzied mob engaged in slaughtering and burning. In China, now as then, a common view is that the Boxers were patriots, though perhaps too superstitious and prone to violence. In other words, they were regarded as flawed and tragic heroes. Tales of a bare-handed Boxer, with his outstanding kungfu, beating an armed foreign bully are still greatly entertaining among common Chinese. There has been a change over the past three decades though: today when people talk about the historical event itself, more emphasis seems to be placed on how stupid the Boxers were to use bare-hands to fight firearms, and how backward China was then in terms of national defense.

The official view has changed more dramatically. As a deeply cultured Chinese writer, Feng Jicai, whose novel about the Boxers was very popular in the 1970s and who is now unhappy with the portrayal in that book, says in an interview earlier this year, Chinese understanding of the Boxer movement has never been free of political utilitarianism. During the Cultural Revolution, to meet the political needs of the time, the Boxers were portrayed as revolutionaries consciously anti-imperialistic. Today, on the other hand, to comply with the reform and opening policy “we treat the Boxer movement as a typical case of blind xenophobia.” As such, Feng believes no historian has really touched the truth of that history, which he is trying to find. A native of Tianjin, a city with rich stories of the Boxers, Feng says the subject is always a knot in his heart. He has been writing new stories about it.

I like what Feng said, that the truth has yet to be found, because it whets my appetite to learn something new about an old topic. In a sense, Wasserstrom’s book has a similar effect on me. In recognizing differences between Western and Chinese views, Wasserstrom helps break stereotypical perceptions and opens the reader’s inquiring minds. He does so throughout the book.

The breadth of this relatively short, 150-page book is amazing. Starting with “Who was Confucius,” it continues without pause to “What was the Dynastic Cycle,” “What was the Opium War,” “Why did the Qing Dynasty Fail,” and much more. Given the brevity and the format, there is a necessary lack of nuance, but there is a great overview of the backbone of Chinese history presented in the blink of an eye.

Building off of the past, the book devotes a chapter to the post-Mao development of China into the modern state it now is. Then it outlines “U.S. –China Misunderstandings,” and finally presents a chapter on what the future holds, providing useful insights into the different ways that Americans and Chinese view one another and how differently they interpret the same events.

Understanding what is happening in China, or America, is difficult for even the best informed people on both sides of the globe. If you are trying to get real insight into the Boxer Rebellion, Mao Zedong, Tibet or a host of other issues relating to China, one short book is surely not enough. But whether you are new to things Chinese or are an old China-hand, something said in China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know will make you think twice, and the references included should carry you quite a way. If you feel a bit lost for not getting a definitive answer to some questions, then you might be one step closer to learning the truth.

Sichuan: Land of Abundance or Emptiness?

2010-08-20T15:34:00.021-04:00

For thousands of years Sichuan, "Land of Abundance," has been recognized as China’s most fertile agricultural base. A new development model being pushed by the provincial government may forever change that. Yesterday I received an email from Maple describing a “pilot program” :

(In translation; 阅读中文原文)

My husband and I were in Chengdu’s Qingcheng Mountains last week, and visited some newly built peasant residences, all beautiful two-story small villas. A woman in her thirties very politely invited us into her house, and answered all my questions in detail.

Monument for a new peasant residence (photo by Maple Xu)

These new peasant residences were built after the [2008’s] earthquake. They look very handsome, however the residents are not victims of the earthquake – they did not have personal or property losses from the disaster. Rather, the new houses are the result of a pilot project taking advantage of the post-disaster rebuilding momentum. These “urban-rural synthesis overall planning” developments are government programs currently ongoing in Sichuan and Chongqing. Simply put, the peasants provide the land, and the government selects a developer to do the unified planning, design, and construction in an urban style. Each participating peasant contributes 2 fens(133.3 square meters) of land, and after the construction is complete, each gets 35 square meters of housing in return. The developer can use the remaining land in any way he wants. Thus, neither the peasants nor the government have to pay a penny, and the developer also gets practical benefits. All are happy.

The family we visited is a household of five. Using 10 fens (666.7 square meter) of their land, they exchanged for a small villa of 175 square meters with a beautiful interior. When asked how they’d make a living without land, the woman replied: 打工- migrant work. They still have a small portion of their land left, and they use it to plant vegetables for sale. Apparently, the woman and her family are very satisfied with their current living condition. After visiting her, I talked to two other people in the neighborhood, and got similar answers.

New peasant residence in Chengdu's Qingcheng Mountains
(photo by Maple Xu)

No farmland could be seen around the residences. There were only a few stalks of corn planted by the “rural home inn” (农家乐) where we stayed, in a small yard, probably smaller than your flower garden.

In my eyes, their life style is no different from that of city people. The peasants themselves also work in the city. But I don’t know if this is a good change. Farmland all turning into villas, vegetable patches become parking, where do we get food and vegetables from? My husband disagrees. He says peasants have the right to live the city people’s life. It is a trend of China’s agricultural reform: centralizing peasants’ scattered residences, and centralizing rural land management so as to bring it to scale. He also says nowadays China imports lots of grains, because the cost is lower than domestic production.

I can only speak intuitively that, when rural is not like rural, city is not like city, it is problematic. Now if you go to Sichuan’s rural areas, you rarely see a piece of farm land, let alone pigs and cows. That’s why when tourists come to Hainan, a relatively backward region, and see water buffaloes pulling plows in paddies, they exclaim, "Exotic!" The media and propaganda keep shouting about building great metropolises, about bringing China’s economy more in line with world standards, about world as one community and the earth as flat, et cetera – I can agree with none of them. If one day Shanghai becomes a clone of Paris, Chongqing a mirror of New York, wouldn’t life becomes meaningless? Look at today’s Chongqing, where hills are dynamited to flatten land, the rubble is used to fill in valleys, and the numerous high rises stand up like a forest. The “mountain city” has no mountain. The “fog capital” has no fog. Isn’t this extremely sad?

And here is a headline from last week’s media: “Sichuan forcefully advances rural tourism and the development of vacation agriculture.”

“Vacation agriculture”: instead of working the fields, peasants take care of tourists from the city. Nothing gets growing – can you call that agriculture at all?

On Writings about the Cultural Revolution

2010-08-17T15:21:00.010-04:00

Random Thoughts on Writings about the Cultural Revolution

by Mu Ting

(excerpt in translation; read the Chinese text here.)

Chinese often say, “Misfortune of the country is the fortune of poets.” Actually, this depends on time and place. WWII brought disaster to many countries, but also provided endless source material for writers and artists. The Cultural Revolution brought China a catastrophe, but only increased the never ending troubles of [Chinese] artists and writers: A painter’s oil painting “Shouting Long Live” can only be hidden in a corner of 798 art zone. A sculptor who made a statue of Lin Zhao was summoned by the government many times. Writers wrote novels about the Red Guards and no publishers dared to publish. A director who made a movie called The Blue Kite,
which involved the CR and didn’t pass domestic censorship, sent it abroad stealthily, received awards, and was stripped of his director qualification immediately and for 7 years thereafter.

The Cultural Revolution tormented people for ten years, but following the “scar literature” and “rethinking literature” periods, relevant works have been scanty. The civil war between the Nationalists and Communists was fought for only three years, yet novels, biographies, memoirs, documentaries, movies , TV series are abundant and everywhere. The cold and hot explain the Chinese characteristic: words are one thing, actions are another.

In old times, artists called this “subject determinism,” meaning the subject determines the work’s fate. Judging a work completely by its subject, this, of course, is very depressing. It went beyond the limits of forbearance for artists in 1950s-60s, and they ridiculed it under the name “subject determinism.” This ridicule angered the left in a big way – they deemed it a desire for the bourgeoisie's freedom of creation, and so denounced it on a grand scale. During the CR, this term was even listed in the “black eight theories” and thus denounced for ten full years.

Reasonably, after the Gang of Four was downed, shouldn’t that have marked the end of “subject determinism”? Big no! Why is there still “subject determinism”? The knowledgeable say, it’s because of “linguistic context.”

Linguistic context is one thing. Besides what to write, there is also how to write it.

The subject of fighting the Japanese invasion, shouldn’t it get straight green lights? However the screenplay of Devils on the Doorstep did not pass – the movie jury made over 40 criticisms, including :

After the Japanese military officer finished playing tricks, not only did he give candy to the children, the movie also showed Chinese children going after the Japanese army asking for candy several times. Through the mouth of Japanese, the movie often insulted Chinese as ‘China pigs’, seriously damaging the image of Chinese

And so on (See Jiang Wen’s Right and Wrong – trouble caused by ‘Devils on the Doorstep’, edited by Wu Di, 2005.) [The director] Jiang Wen, being cornered, decided on no single word change, but further added a scene depicting a joint celebration between the Chinese villagers and the Japanese troops. The Cannes gave him a big prize. Inside the country he got a severe warning; so far the movie is still banned. The result was an all-happy harmonious scene between the pirate and the pirated – once, Jiang Wen ran into an Anhui boy selling the pirated disks, and he bought 150 of them immediately. He still didn’t feel that was enough and wanted to buy more.

The same is true with the CR. It’s not that it absolutely can’t be written about; it is how you are writing it. Yu Hua and Yan Lianke are one positive and one negative examples, respectively.

Yu Hua’s Brothers (2006), a novel of over 500 thousand words, in its first part uses a modernist approach to write about the CR: in a small southern town, a boy named Bald Li yearns for women’s asses. The town beauty, Lin Hong, goes to the toilet, and Bald Li follows her to peep. After peeping, he brags about it everywhere, and the town men are infatuated. In order to have Bald Li repeatedly describe what he saw, the adults vie each other to treat him with noodles. The peep and telling occupy two chapters of Brothers.

In Yan Lianke’s Serve the People (2005), a division commander marries Liu Lian, a nurse 19 years younger than he. The commander has lost sexual functionality, having been wounded during war. Liu Lian commits adultery with the commander’s guard. Their contact signal is a signboard of Mao’s quotation “Serve the People.” Once, when the commander takes his troop for field training, the two have a rendezvous for 7 days and 7 nights. Their main work is to make love. Liu Lian discovers that smashing Mao’s portraits raises both their sexual desires, and her home turns into a shambles of Mao’s portraits. When the commander returns home, he finds out. But Liu LIan’s pregnancy saves his face. As thanks, when the guard retires from service, he and his family all get to transfer their rural registration to a city.

Both novels write about sex. Brothers is written in a surrealistic way, of an absurd sexual abnormality. Yan Lianke writes about an abnormal marriage caused by class privileges, using a metaphor for the sex-politics relation. Such are the two different writing approaches. Yu Hua’s Brothers was published four years ago and is still a hot seller. Yan Lianke’s Serve the People, however, was banned right after publication. That issue of Flower City (花城) magazine (which published his novel) was also recalled and destroyed.

The jury for the Mao Dun Literary Prize commented on Yu Hua’s novel: “Brothers is a case of successful commercial hype. The work has poor esthetics and misrepresents details.” To say the novel has “poor esthetics” is pertinent; to say it misrepresents details is itself misrepresentation – What Yu Hua uses is a modernist approach. Modernism, at least China’s modernism, treats reality as its enemy. Misrepresentation of details is the pursuit.

Tian Jianmo’s Traces of History takes a different path. He disdains Yu Hua-like surrealism, and stays away from Yan Lianke’s political metaphors. He insists on realism.

Chinese Social Sci-Fi Follow-Up

2010-08-09T07:32:00.018-04:00

Since my essay, “The Return of Politically Charged Science Fiction in China,” appeared in Foreign Policy, I’ve heard from a number of readers seeking further information on Chinese Sci Fi. Interested readers should check out Joel Martinsen’s blog post "Social commentary in Chinese SF: 2013, Han Song, and others" for a more complete picture of the present Chinese SF scene. I find the post, in which Joel (dubbed by a reader as "truly a Chinese SF fan") noted a number of recent SF works that are “socially conscious,” is very interesting and informative. Joel concluded that, Chen Guanzhong’s China 2013 “may be the first political fantasy to take such direct aim at the modern social order and to discuss politics in such depth, but these and other science fiction stories also engage with contemporary Chinese society in
thought-provoking ways.”

I sent Joel an email to thank him for providing the additional information that was overlooked in my FP essay, and he very kindly replied, with good insights as usual:

I enjoyed your article, which I thought provided a nice bit context that's been lacking in other reviews of the book.

It's true that Chinese SF is a fairly small movement, and the socially conscious stuff is an even smaller subset, so it's not surprising that it doesn't get much attention. Books go out of print fairly quickly -- I was lent a copy of *2066* by a BNU professor back in 2003 but wasn't able to locate a copy of my own until last year (and the author didn't receive any payment from the publisher until last month!). And new novels rarely receive any media attention, although that's been improving a bit: Liu Cixin's *Three Body II* was the subject of essays in 书城, 小说界, and a few other journals, and SF authors were invited to present papers at a recent conference in Shanghai on the past decade of Chinese literature -- Jia Liyuan spoke on the image of China in Chinese SF, and Han Song spoke on the use of self-mockery (I've only seen the titles, but the papers sound fascinating). So mainland-based social SF could conceivably find a wider audience in the future.

In all, it seems that China 2013 is part of a small but growing emergence of politically themed Chinese science fiction, even though almost all of the works to date have had to run around the censorship machine. Hopefully, the substantial popularity the book has enjoyed will engender even more of this in the future.

In addition to Joel's blog, here are a couple of websites for fans of Chinese SF:

(English) World Chinese-Language Science Fiction Research Workshop (h/t Jeff Wasserstrom)
(Chinese) 《新幻界》杂志官方博客 (h/t Zhang Feng)

Literature and the Cultural Revolution

2010-08-06T21:03:00.019-04:00

Remembrance (<记忆>) is a Chinese e-journal devoted to the Cultural Revolution research. Its latest issue (54) is titled “Literature and the Cultural Revolution,” which contains interviews with three Chinese authors (including me), and reviews of their works. I’ve posted this issue (in Chinese) on my website to share with interested readers.

The first two authors interviewed have novels you won’t normally find in China’s bookstores, but you may be able to read excerpts on the internet . The novels are:

Traces of History by Tian Jianmo (<史迹>, 田建模)
Lonely Curse by Xin Cunzhe ( <孤独的咒语>, 行村哲)

The reviews of the above novels are very interesting to read (though I might not necessarily agree with everything they say). One of them, Mu Ting’s “Random Thoughts about Writing on the Subject of the Cultural Revolution” (穆汀: “文革题材创作随感”) , contains comments on Yu Hua’s Brothers and Yan Lianke’s Serve the People. I’m translating the first part of the review below:

Random Thoughts on Writings about the Cultural Revolution

The Return of Politically Charged Science Fiction in China

2010-07-31T22:07:00.005-04:00

My essay about social sci-fi in China and Chen Guanzhong's recent novel, China 2013, is now up on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. It seems to be getting quite a few reads. I've already gotten questions about an English translation of the book. It is not yet available; if you need further information about a translation, someone in this podcast, "Science Fiction in China," might know more than I do.

There was also a reader question as to whether Lao She's suicide was real or only an "official version" of the story. As far as I know, that is the fact. Lao She's son, Shu Yi (舒乙), has written many articles about his father's suicide; you can read one of them here (in Chinese).

If you are interested, here are some other English reviews of China 2013:

Questioning the “Chinese Model of Development”, The China Beat
Yawning Heights: Chan Koon-chung’s Harmonious China, China Heritage Quarterly
The Fat Years: China, 2013, Jonathan in China blog
(Update) The dystopian novel that's turning China upside down, io9

(Indeed there are different translations of the book title and even the author's name, the latter depending on whether Cantonese or Mandarin is in use for pronunciation.)

Lost in Translation: Chicken with Bones in Korea

2010-07-29T11:31:00.001-04:00

by Bob Eberlein

(Time for something light. Bob is in Seoul attending the System Dynamics annual conference this week. He emailed me this and said, “Thought you would be amused.” And I was. – Xujun)

Last night, I decided it would be good to do a little bit of souvenir shopping in Seoul as well as watch the town. So far, my experience this time had been limited to the conference hotel, the surrounding park and morning runs along the river. All of this was very pleasant, and it was fun to see all the Koreans out and moving around, but their direction was consistently purposeful. Not to get to someplace quickly, nor to explore some new area, but really to walk because they knew it would be good for them to do so. I applaud the sentiment and the devotion they have to their duty – I saw very few overweight people, at least till we got to the chicken with bones.

As I was leaving the hotel, I ran into a young man from India, who was also attending the conference. He suggested a good place to go, by subway, to do souvenir shopping. That sounded good and, when he suggested he might come along, I offered to buy him dinner.

So we set off on Seoul’s subway, a marvelously complicated contraption, and a few train changes later found ourselves in Myeong-dong, the shopping epicenter of Korea. Lots of stores, lots of street vendors and lots of people. Though some were walking with purpose, it was clear that purpose was not exercise. It was a new Seoul for me, and I like to think other parts of the city would be equally different.

After wandering a while and picking up a couple of souvenirs, we decided to look for dinner. The first place we looked at was pure Korean beef. Neither of us had objections, my friend’s Indian heritage notwithstanding, but neither did it really appeal. So we wandered a bit more, past an old woman who was selling things from the sea, which looked more like decorations than food to me, and came across a really crowded restaurant that had a picture that looked really good.

The crowding, it turns out, did not slow us down much. We watched as people ate, briefly paused to wipe their mouths, then abruptly stood up, paid and departed. While I have often noticed Chinese people being impatient to get up and out after a meal, I had never seen anything like this. I suspect it was the restaurant, and not just Korean culture at play here. This was a serious eating place and, if your weren’t eating, you just didn’t blend.

They sent us upstairs, sat us down and gave us a menu. It was all in Korean and the only things I could understand were the prices. There was a picture of something that looked delicious, but it was not obviously associated with anything on the menu. Soon, however, they brought out their “English” menu. In reality it was Korean, English and Chinese. The main entries were “chicken without bones” and “chicken with bones.” My rudimentary Chinese allowed me to figure out that there were two sizes, 中 for 1-2 people and 大 for 3-4 people. The chicken without bones was a couple of dollars cheaper and this puzzled us. Wouldn’t it be more expensive to debone the chicken?

When the waiter returned we pointed to the picture, still not associated with any entry, and asked which one it was. We then pointed to the smaller size “chicken with bones” and ordered that, though neither of us was very fond of picking over bones. When it arrived, it included the chicken, shrimp, octopus, clams, mussels, potatoes and rice noodles all cooked up in a really nice, and somewhat spicy, sauce. Between the two of us we managed to finish about half the food that was there.

With the bones, it seems, comes an awful lot of seafood. That restaurant was, in fact, one of the few places I noticed a number of overweight people. Perhaps they were capable of finishing the serving size that was offered.

Speak of Motivation

2010-07-22T16:10:00.017-04:00

People were asking why I had not commented on Wang Hui’s plagiarism scandal. It’s not that I didn’t care. Truth is, I had selfish reasons for keeping silent. The two recent open letters that stirred the water, one by Chinese scholars and the other by international scholars, have been dubbed as tit for tat, and I have friends in both camps of signatories. Is my opinion on this more important than friendship? For a while I was unsure. That was the main concern. Another – somewhat petty – motivation was to steer clear of suspicion of personal grudge.

Not that I know Wang Hui personally. Not really. I was a long-time reader of Du Shu (读书) magazine, and I liked it so much that I even subscribed from the US, which is quite expensive. In my opinion it was during Wang Hui’s tenure as the editor that the magazine was the most interesting, thought provoking, and richest in content. (With a different editor now, the magazine has become somewhat boring.) I had always thought it’d be fun to chat with Wang Hui if there were a chance.

A few months ago, I attended the “Red Legacy in China” forum at Harvard University; Wang Hui was one of the speakers. This was the first time I saw Wang Hui in person. After the meeting, I went up to say Hello in the hallway. I had already heard about his plagiarism scandal then, but I had no intention of mentioning it (and never did). All I wanted to say was how much I enjoyed Du Shu under his editorship, with a slim hope for an intelligent conversation.

What I got was totally unexpected. Wang Hui showed nothing but rudeness to me. So much so that later Bob, who was waiting for me aside at the time, said, “Wow, that guy’s a real asshole. Either that, or he really needed to go to the bathroom.”

What was Wang Hui’s motivation for treating me, a stranger and a “fan” no less, so rudely? Perhaps because he is too important to be polite to someone not as famous as he is? Or maybe because I’m a Chinese, not an American who could be of more use to him? (If so, he might be right about that.) Of course, equally possible is that I just happened upon him at a bad moment, when he was too upset about the plagiarism accusation to behave normally.

Look, I have no basis to second guess his motivation. I simply don’t know him well enough, so what happened in the halls of Harvard is moot. Though my personal impression of him was crashed by that brief encounter, my conscience tells me as a writer I shouldn’t allow the unpleasant experience to dictate my opinions on his plagiarism accusations.

Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that the support letter from the eighty-some international scholars suggests that Wang Hui is the victim of “unmotivated attacks from the media culture” and that “ordinary cultural politics inside the university are criminalized.” A signatory believes that “the ‘real reason’ Wang Hui came under attack was his political opinions.”

This is certainly possible, but again I don’t have enough evidence to verify it. As such I decided to ask a friend, a signatory of the Chinese letter calling for an objective investigation, why he signed the letter. Here is his answer:

[in translation]

“I know a letter like this may not do much, but I am too disgusted by current academic corruption and counterfeiting. To make a small sound is still something. I read the joint letter by the overseas scholars who support Wang Hui; [they] seem to be either Wang’s students or from the New Left? Why does the left also play factionalism? Don’t they know what a thing China’s present-day universities really are? In their letter they completely equate China’s universities to those in developed countries."

This friend, by the way, is not in any political faction, though at times he showed sympathy to the New Left. From our many years of acquaintance, he is an honest scholar who has my trust. At least in his case as a signatory, there isn’t a political motivation.

Now, what is my opinion on Wang Hui’s plagiarism accusations? When first reading Wang Binbin’s article, I was put off by his unconcealed pleasure in finding a big target. There is a Chinese saying, "Words are like the writer (文如其人)". Judging from his writing style, Wang Binbin is not someone I would admire. Given the history of Wang Binbin as I read from the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if his motivation was more personal (fame-thirst?) than political. Also, at least half of the evidences Wang Binbin provided against Wang Hui is pretty weak IMO.

This said, one or two of the pieces of evidence could be potentially damaging, not to mention that a couple of internet researchers have added more findings supporting the plagiarism charge. Without reading Wang Hui’s dissertation/book, I can’t really make a confident judgment, but an objective investigation makes sense to me. Motivations might not be measurable, plagiarism should be. As the Chinese open letter says, if Wang Hui is innocent, the investigation could clear his name. At a minimum, the investigation would help establish the academic norm (which is lacking in present China) against counterfeit work. To ensure objectivity, the investigation committee should invite scholars from both sides (of the debate, and the Pacific).

To end this piece, I must say it was only after great hesitation that I wrote it, for the reasons mentioned earlier. I’m an independent writer who refuses to get involved in any political parties, and I intend to keep this position for the rest of my life. As such please do not place me in a particular camp.

Matchmaking Morality

2010-07-14T12:24:00.005-04:00

I'd thought that enough was written about the matchmaking show "If you are not sincere" (also referred to as "If you are the one"), until I got the following questions from a reader:

Why do you think these remarks set off such a firestorm? More than a half century ago Marilyn Monroe could sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" in Hays code Hollywood and no one got too upset. Are the woman's comments troubling to you? What do you think about the government move? Is it a noble effort to try to encourage virtue or a hopeless attempt to impose an ancient moral code? Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality?

Actually, I was equally curious about who in particular ordered the censorship. Was it from some sanctimonious leaders in The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), or from higher authority of the Party central (e.g. Hu Jintao)? The latter possibility is certainly more worrisome. I have written in this space before that the Party nowadays, though still active in political censorship, seemed to have left people's lifestyle issues alone. The return of such control is not a good sign.

Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality? It certainly did in the Mao era. Not only "shaping," the government (which was the Party itself) defined morality for the public and the public sincerely followed its rules. However, that sincerity largely came from people's belief in Communism. This is to say, administrative command alone wouldn't have been so effective. But Communism as practiced by Mao suppressed human nature (e.g., desire for a better material life) to an extreme and thus was doomed to be short lived. The destructive Cultural Revolution, in a sense, was a violent release of suppressed human nature. Consequently, the belief in Communism collapsed after the CR. Now the situation is that the administrative command may be obeyed, but not sincerely. As an observant reader commented on my previous post, "The woman from the Party School is totally superfluous, and people on the show seem to be protesting silently."

The "mammonism" being scolded upon today is actually a consequence of an earlier notion of Deng Xiaoping's that "to be rich is glorious," which, to my understanding, was a hypercorrection of Mao's collective-poverty policy. Now the government seems to be quietly trying to re-correct Deng's correction, probably motivated by concerns about social unrest caused by the ever larger wealth gap. But as long as the wealth gap exists, there's no way to eliminate the poor's desire to catch up the rich. The censorship itself seems laughable and, without sincere beliefs to back it up, can only result in a new immorality of hypocrisy. This is a post-Communist dilemma that the authority must deal with. Stop issuing such stupid commands. If you are sincere, do something about the wealth gap.

I should also add that, from the pre-censorship episodes of the matchmaking show I've watched, I only saw two women (among hundreds) who openly placed wealth as the top criterion for choosing a mate. Both were, from time to time, mocked by Meng Fei and Le Jia in a good-natured way. Most women apparently considered the men's character and personality first, and economic condition second (certainly not ignoring it). One thing that particularly touches me is that the majority men and women have mentioned as a condition for a prospect mate: "Be filial to my parents." You often hear a statement like "It's my biggest happiness to make my parents happy." This is sincerity. This is morality with "Chinese characteristics."

Aftermath of Matchmaking Censorship

2010-07-06T16:06:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, a reader gave me a heads-up on a Washington Post article titled "TV matchmaking show runs afoul of China's morality campaign" by Keith B. Richburg, which came 20 days after I wrote about the same subject in this space. It does not add much new, but other than a couple of minor inaccuracies (for example the half-misquote “rather cry in a BMW than ride a bicycle while laughing”), the writing is alright.

I don't know if the author knows Chinese, or if he has watched the show himself, but since his report came so much later, it would have been more informative if he included updates about the show after the censorship. Because he didn't, I'll take the opportunity to tell you about a few of the most obvious changes.

One is that the program ("If you are not sincere" or "If you are the one," whichever way you like to call it) now has a Party School teacher, a middle-aged woman, sitting on the stage, next to the popular commentator Le Jia. Whether this was government imposed, or the program's way to add protection, I don't know (it is for Keith Richburg to find out :-)). Her presence reminds me of the "model Beijing operas" during the Cultural Revolution – in those there was often a female Party representative who could do nothing wrong. Not surprisingly, the show’s Party School teacher dresses sedately in a politically correct way. And she does not display the emotional personality that Le Jia does. To her credit, her words so far have not been as doctrinaire as I had expected, but they haven’t offered much insight either. With her sitting there, I'm sure all the women guests will behave themselves, and hide some of their true sides. Too bad the contestants still dress multifariously – I wonder why the government has not required them to wear the same outfit, for example only blue or green like we did during the Cultural Revolution.

Another change is that now none of the male guests is allowed to state his income. How does this stop the "mammonism" repeatedly scolded about in the government instructions? The contestants avoid using the word "money," but not "cars" or "houses." I'm afraid the government will have to issue another set of instructions to ban those words as well.

Yet another change is that more hero-like male guests are appearing on the stage. A selfless professional rescuer who kept saying "It is my happiness to rescue people and state property" (he failed to take away his choice woman), and a Canton policeman coming to help the pretty single-mother (whose bad luck with the male guests had made Le Jia cry), for example. Both professions appeared for the first time, Meng Fei announced.

The government ordered the exclusion of actors and disallowed any scripted interactions in matchmaking shows. But the most noticeable consequence of the new rules seems to be that everyone must do some acting now. "If you are not sincere" has lost some of the spontaneity it had before.

Pleasure and Pain at Shanghai World Expo

2010-06-29T09:11:00.024-04:00

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation; 阅读中文原文]

SHANGHAI, China – Before the Shanghai Expo began, a friend and I made different predications on which month would be the most crowded. She said May, because it'd start with the three-day labor-day holiday period. I said June, because everyone would think the same way my friend did and thus try to avoid May. I was unfortunately right, but because of a chance circumstance, I myself ended up going there in the peak month.

My husband and I planned on a three-day visit: one day each to the Asia Square, Europe and America Squares, and the Urban Best Practices Area, respectively.

Friends who had been there before told us, if you don't want to wait for hours in line outside the Expo gate, noon is a better time to go. Indeed, we arrived at the security point around 11:30 am, and there was almost no line. When asked, a staff said that since 9:00, over 400 thousand people had gone in. My heart tightened: what a rumpus would 400 thousand people kick up inside! But when we reached the square, it was surprisingly empty. Where had all the people gone? Standing in lines all over the world.

Lines at Expo gate (photo by Maple Xu)

I had been prepared for lines; still, I was shocked by what I saw at the Saudi Arabia Pavilion. The line was so long it snaked along several streets, and a sign showed "waiting time above 8 hours." With no exaggeration, we walked at least 15 minutes just to find out how long the line was. What's more, it wasn't even a single line; in each row 4 or 5 people were pushing into each other.

Seeing the slowly creeping line toasting under the sun and people's worn-out faces, I was puzzled: what's worth so much as 8 hours standing in the line? The answer turned out to be a 15-minute 3D movie. My God, can it be more splendid than Avatar? No way. Even for Avatar I wouldn't want to wait 8 hours. My husband shook his head like a rattle:"All lost minds. All lost minds."

Sigh. The bottom line is our countrymen are too poor. After all, those who have the means to travel internationally are rare. The majority of Chinese have not seen much of the world. Once they heard the government advertizing that "Among foreign pavilions, the Saudi Arabia Pavilion has the biggest investment – 13 hundred million RMB, and it has the world's biggest IMAX movie theater," everyone's gone mad. Disturbed by this, my husband said seriously:"If any pavilion requires more than an hour wait, we won't go in."

As such, the China Pavilion was the first we gave up. It wasn't that I was unpatriotic; I had no other way out. In the whole Expo, only two pavilions allowed pre-registration. Without pre-registration, each of those two would require more than four hours of waiting. Meantime, pre-registration itself requires waiting in line because there are too many people. My friend's father, in order to obtain pre-registration tickets for outside relatives, waited in line at the Expo gate from 5:30 am to 9 am, that was three and a half hours. The tickets ran out within twenty minutes after the gate opened, so lots of people wasted their time in line.

And I had no choice but to give up on two of the most worthy pavilions: Korea and Japan.

Pavilions like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. did not have lines. They were more like markets than exhibitions. Retail vendors set up stalls right there in the halls, and hawked their wares: scarfs, bracelets, and rugs. For a scarf that was priced for 420 yuan, you could bargain down to 50 yuan. How low a price you dare to haggle, how low a price they dare to sell. Several astute Shanghai girls were flabbergasted by this.

A no-line pavilion like a street market (Photo by Maple Xu)

Pavilions that did not have long lines didn't seem to be that interesting. I reasoned with my husband: "A long line must have its reasons. You don't want long lines, you don't get to see interesting things." He replied: "By your logic, shouldn’t Saudi Arabia be the most interesting one?" I was tongue-tied.

People say, now when friends gather, the following conversation would always take place:

"Have you seen the Expo?"
"Yes."
"Have you been in the Saudi Arabia Pavilion?"
"…"

A conversation like this goes on all the time. It makes the Saudi Arabia Pavilion a legend, and a joke.

The next day, we again entered the Expo around 11 am. In the Europe and America Squares, the pavilions with lines longer than 4 hours included Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, US, and Canada. So they couldn't be our cup of tea. Other countries, such as Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Hungary, Russia, England, Italy etc. each had lines about 40-minute long.

Denmark's national treasure Mermaid was smaller and darker than I thought, but their freshly baked cookies were worthy of the name. The England Pavilion's contour had been enjoying media praise, and its look indeed was dreamily beautiful, but who could have guessed inside the pavilion there was nothing to see? When those who suffered backache from the long standing in line about to hurl angry words, wait a second, a clown wearing fake teeth and life buoy was grinning cheekily, ready to take a photo with you! For the Russia Pavilion we waited in line for more than 50 minutes; inside were only giant colorful vulgar plastic flowers. Speechless.

Worth noting is the Hungary Pavilion – one could tell the exhibitor's sincerity and thoughtfulness. In the Norway Pavilion, the smart and unrestrained structure, together with its wonderful background music, brought you calmness.

An unexpected reward of the day was after 10 pm. It drizzled, and visitors became sparse. Many pavilions had no more lines. We visited Romania, Finland, Austria, and Sweden, and enjoyed three performances of indoor music in close quarters. Perhaps because we were completely out of the burden of waiting in lines, those visits were a great pleasure.

There were at most 2% foreigners among the Expo visitors. I guess other foreigners were scared off by the long snaking lines. Who would like to do things that are completely inefficient with loss greater than gain? Only Chinese are this robustly patient, obedient, reticent, and complaint free.

To be fair, you shouldn't place all the blame on "Chinese's poor personal quality" for the Expo's unclean environment. Think about it: if you visit ten places a day, let's say for each you wait just one hour in line on average, that would still total up to a full ten hours of standing! Thirst, hunger, exhaustion plus extreme boredom made people eat non-stop mechanically. Trash cans and cleaning staff were sparse around the lines, no wonder food containers and wraps were littered all over the ground.

There were also people who cut lines, mostly women, who bravely pushed forward through the crowd. Curiously, few tried to stop them. Perhaps the men took pity on the women for their hard experience.

There were also fake handicap people and pregnant women going through the "green lane." Some "handicapped," after entering the gate, ran faster than a cat. Some "pregnant" squeezed a pillow into their clothes. One elder was followed by five young people who carried his shoes or cups. It is said that, to ensure fairness, "green lane" has been cancelled.

I kept wondering why the Shanghai government was so incompetent. On-line pre-registration would have solved the problem. The modern technology is there to settle these things. It can easily put limits on visitor flow on a daily and even hourly basis, whether for an individual pavilion or the entire Expo. Visitors didn't have to lose spirit and suffer foot ache from standing in long lines and then seeing nothing as a result.

But the Shanghai government doesn't seem to see the problem. They worry about only the visitor number and revenue targets. In early May, visitor flow was only in the scale of tens of thousands, and the government feared it wouldn't be the largest Expo in history, with the largest number of visitors as they have boasted: where to put their face otherwise? Therefore they gave away a large quantity of tickets, and organized county folk to visit with low prices. Now 400-500 thousand visitors enter everyday, they don't think about how to solve the problems, still only boast in big media outlets about exceeding harmony targets.

Our third day of visit was the most interesting. In the Urban Best Practices Area, various countries' conceptions of and plans for low-carbon life styles, environmental protection, and energy conservation were fascinating. And there were no lines. The only long line was at the China Petrol Pavilion. I heard it was because of a small movie. Weird.

In the Hamburg Pavilion, the German black beer and seafood salad were delicious! I especially want to praise those.

The special gain of the day was that, after 8 pm, on the way back we passed the Europe Square, and entered the France and Germany Pavilions with little lines to wait in.

My husband said that, in the three days, departure by 11 am, returning by 11 pm, it was often tiring and depressing, yet unforgettable to him were the three best meals of Denmark, Czech Republic, and Germany, respectively. All their ingredients were imported from the original country, and the chefs were native. The waiters, though did not speak Chinese, all had sunny smiles on their faces. Another important factor is that, because media did not hype it, those restaurants were usually quiet. When you enjoy the rare peace there, you will also find the food is not as expensive as you might fear, at least no more expensive than any of Shanghai's Western food restaurants. Perhaps those foreigners really just wanted to show their local pride, unrelated to money.

So we've decided to visit the Expo once more in the fall. Not going to any exhibition, just choose a Western food restaurant, find two window seats, sit down, have soup, fish steak and dessert, and do some blank staring. Don't you think this scene is rather harmonious as well?

On Translation of "Mob Mentality"

2010-06-26T15:12:00.015-04:00

Yesterday I received an email from Beijing, which mentions in passing that a Chinese translation of my two articles (here and here) is circulating on the internet. I took a look and saw that the translation was originated from China Digital Times (here and here).

There is an error in the translation I'd like to correct. Before going there, however, I must say I have tremendous respect for China Digital Times, which has done a great job relaying China-themed news and commentaries between the English and Chinese worlds. It appears to me that the translator of my articles is a young member of a Beijing voluntary translator group called 译者. I recommend you check out the 译者 website because it has rich, up-to-date information on China's current affairs.

The translation in question could use some polishing but is acceptable for the most part. One can't demand too much from volunteer work, which I appreciate very much. As such I'm only going to address one error that, left uncorrected, makes parts of the article incoherent. I've tried to contact the translator, but because the translation has been circulating extensively on the Chinese internet and can't be all corrected, I feel the need to post it on my blog.

Here is the part of the Chinese translation on China Digital Times I'm talking about:

毕竟，文革的一代中，没有几个人是完全清白的。文化大革命是一场全民运动。在那个时期，极少有人能逃脱思想煽动。即便是今天，一想到那时如果我岁数够大，可能也会铸成什么令我悔恨终生的大错，就会出冷汗。

作为一个作者，比起对当时的人们指指点点的评论，我总是对了解当时的思想煽动更感兴趣。为了了解当时的情况，我们必须不断的挖掘历史真相。我认为我们挖掘的还不够深，了解的还不够多。今年早些时候，我听说当很多人指责张艺谋新排的贺岁片很蠢时，这位著名的导演声称中国人民有着太多像文革那样的沉重话题，他们所需要的是一些轻松的电影。张艺谋只从自己这一代人的角度看问题的狭窄眼界让我非常震惊。难道他没发现当代的年轻人对文革和1989年一类的事件完全无知么？在思想煽动这件事上，他们并未从父辈那儿接受任何教训，现在，因特网上已经开始出现新式思想煽动的苗头。

And here is my original text:

After all, few of the CR generation were completely innocent. The Cultural Revolution was an all-people movement. It was a time that few escaped the mob mentality. Even today it gives me cold sweats with the thought that, if I were old enough then, I could have done terrible things that I would regret for a lifetime.

As a writer, I’ve always been more interested in understanding the mob mentality than pointing fingers. To understand we have to keep digging through the past. I don’t think we have dug deep enough, have understand enough. I heard that, early this year, when Zhang Yimou made a New Year movie that many deemed too stupid, the famous director claimed that Chinese people had enough heavy topics like the CR, what they needed now were light-hearted, relaxing movies. It surprises me that Zhang’s sight is this narrow, from only the viewpoint of his generation. Has he noticed that today’s young people are very ignorant of the recent past such as the CR and 1989? Without learning the lessons from their parents, new signs of mob mentality have already began to show on the internet.

As you can see, the phrase "mob mentality," which means "暴民心态", is wrongly translated as 思想煽动 (meaning "thought demagogy"). A totally different concept.

Again, I really appreciate the volunteer work of those young people and their interest in the CR history. Perhaps the error occurred because "mob mentality" is an unfamiliar concept to the young generation of Chinese, which in turn might partially explain why mob mentality has been commonplace on the Chinese internet. If so, I hope this post may serve as stimulation for young people's interest in studying, and recognizing, mob mentality.

And I hope the promising translator will not be discouraged by this. To become good at translation requires lots of practice, so this should be just one small experience.

By the way, I rather like this translator's translation of my book title, "酝酿中的道歉"，which literally means "apologies in fermentation." I hope one day my book will have the opportunity to be published in Chinese, and this would be a good title for it.

Update (6/27): I received a kind email from the translator who says they'll fix the error on their website. I appreciate it.

Matchmaking Censorship

2010-06-15T10:10:00.004-04:00

For a moment, I thought my previous post was the curse: this past Sunday, PPStream ceased broadcasting the reality TV show "If You Are Not Sincere, Don't Bother Me" (非诚勿扰), just three days after my post. Not only that, much to my chagrin, all the previous episodes have also been removed. Then I found an announcement on the PPS website saying they did this to comply with new instructions from The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), issued twice on June 2 and 8. (My ominous post went up on June 9.)

Here is the gist of the SARFT instructions:

婚恋交友类电视节目不能由演员、模特、节目主持人、“富二代”、“成功人士”等身份的嘉宾占据荧屏；不得选择社会形象不佳或有争议的人物担当主持人；不得以婚恋的名义对参与者进行羞辱或人身攻击，甚至讨论低俗涉性内容，不得展示和炒作拜金主义等不健康、不正确的婚恋观。

[In translation]

Matchmaking TV shows may not let actors, models, program hosts, 'the second generation of the rich,' and 'the successful figures' appear as guests to occupy the screen; may not choose those with disreputable social image or contentious characters as hosts; may not use the name of love or marriage to insult or make personal attacks against participants, or discuss vulgar sexual content ; may not demonstrate or promote unhealthy and incorrect marriage-love views such as mammonism.

Did the bureaucrats at SARFT eat too much and have nothing better to do? What made them issue such superfluous and laughable restrictions on non-political, entertaining, and revealing TV shows? Rumor has it that Ma Nuo, one of the earlier female guests in "If You Are Not Sincere," triggered the shot. Ma Nuo's most infamous quote circling on the internet is "I'd rather cry in a BMW" – her reply to a male guest, a cyclist, who asked if she'd like to ride a bike with him. (But Baidu has a post that says what she actually said was "a BMW is rather cool." In Chinese, "cry" (哭) and "cool" (酷) sound pretty much the same.) Because of this, Ma Nuo's name has become a synonym of "mammonism," and been attacked by numerous netizens. And this, apparently, became the motive to restrict "the second generation of the rich" to participate in matchmaking shows.

Deng Xioaping, the "father of reform and opening," promulgated the notion that "being rich is glorious." No more, I guess, but wouldn't it be more effective to simply order "the rich" to stay single, or have a "zero-child policy" for them and their children?

So what is next? Perhaps cooking shows that mention any meats other than pork, or any vegetable other than cabbage, will come under the lens. Or maybe weather programs that suggest anything but fine weather or needed rain are on the way will be nixed. Maybe business programs that discuss financial problems in the Euro-zone will be told to stop that and go along with the official position of expected stability.

Not surprisingly, the hypocritical call is met with hypocritical responses. So far all the TV stations running a matchmaking show have made sonorous echoes that they "firmly advocate SARFT's instructions," while each and every one of them says they have nothing to do with the criticism. The shows continue; only we overseas audiences are deprived the pleasure of watching them at PPStream's mercy.

Times have certainly changed. It seems like those outside of China can be more strongly influenced by the edicts of Beijing than those inside. The government can continue to issue superfluous instructions that are not sincere, just don't expect everyone to be bothered as much as PPStream.

If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me

2010-06-09T08:00:00.008-04:00

Sunday evening, June 6. On the stage ablaze with lights stand 24 women, most in their early 20s, and not yet betrothed, waiting for their chance at “fast matchmaking.” Before each of the women is a green-lighted podium with her number, her name and a switch. A young man descends from a glass elevator: first shoes, then pants, then the black jacket, black glasses, and a black hat hiding a lowered head. Pop music and applause break out.

Meng Fei, the bald host aged 39, asks the 28-year-old handsome Shanghai man: “Why do you dress like a magician?”

We hear a nervous reply, ”Eh…they say I look a bit like Harry Potter…”

After some good-natured teasing, Meng Fei hands the young man a digital pad and asks him to choose one girl who “arouses your heart. “

We see the number he enters– “1” – but it is concealed from the women on the stage. Suspense immediately builds. This woman, Xie Jia, is a college student 22 years young, who says she did not discover herself as a woman until age 21. Good looking, intelligent, she has nonetheless rarely been chosen by men, and has been standing there for many installments. Judging by appearances, the two look like a match. I find myself hoping Xie Jia will be taken away in this man’s arms.

The women appraise him for a first impression. Meng Fei turns to all, “Please choose.”

Ding, ding. Two girls’ lights go off – “Not interested.” Most leave theirs on (I am relieved to see Xie Jia among them), watching the "magician" with open curiosity.

Meng Fei asks the two girls why they turned off their lights.

”I have no interest in Harry Potter,” one woman replies. Laughter ensues from the audience.

“He does not make me feel secure,” says the other, "not at all."

Three more thresholds await the man. If, after that, there are still lights on, he’ll be able to enter the final stage “rights reverse to the male.” Otherwise he receives a “failure exit." The suspense is that of a well-plotted drama.

Only this is a reality show that is more engaging than most movies I’ve seen. Titled after Feng Xiaogang's popular movie, “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” (非诚勿扰), the weekend matchmaking show broadcast on Jiangsu Satellite TV is currently China's highest rated program. I first heard about it shortly after its launch in January, but did not pay much attention because reality shows don't usually interest me. Over time, however, more and more Chinese friends were telling me how fun it is to watch. When I started to watch the re-made Three Kingdoms on PPStream, Jiangsu TV had bundled it with “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” for weekend prime time. Once I clicked it, I was hooked.

To my dismay, the young man who looked like Harry Potter did not pass the women's scrutiny. Before he had a chance for "rights reverse to the male," all the lights had gone off, including Xie Jia's, who apparently was not aware of his admiration. I'm not sure which of his statements, "I can peel lobster very fast," or "I love to hand-wash clothes on a washboard," had turned her off, except that those words did not demonstrate whatever quality Xie Jia was looking for in a man.

The program is one-hour long, and each male guest is given 20 minutes or so on stage. For the installments I've seen so far, the majority of male guests got a "failure exit." Even for those lucky ones who enter the final stage, the remaining lights often do not include the woman "arousing his heart." Thus successful matchmaking remains rare. At times, however, a happy ending can move the audience to tears.

Last Saturday, after two men exited with failure, an ordinary-looking, round-face young photographer with a collected, quiet humor took away his choice woman, Liu Huan, unexpectedly. The outcome was unusual because of the beautiful young woman's odd situation: Liu Huan had been on stage together with her mother. She had turned her light off early on, however the mother kept her light on. When Meng Fei asked why, the mother said the man would be an ideal son-in-law for her. Toward the end, six lights were still on. Meng Fei told the young photographer if he wanted one of those, he could take her hand right away. But if he insisted on Liu Huan, he might end up leaving alone.

The young man insisted, and was given 30 seconds for a last-ditch pursuit. "Do you know my situation?" Liu Huan asked. "Yes I do," the young man answered. Liu Huan (who apparently had turned down many pursuers) said she had joined the program to help her mother, and would not leave before her mother found a good match. Her voice began to tremble; her mother covered her face as tears running down. Applause and sobs could be heard from the audience. "Today I'm surprised to see my mother kept her light on for me to the last minute. I’ve decided to be a good daughter," Liu Huan said. The young couple held hands; cheers and applause followed for a long time. The mother and daughter left together for good.

The show is a kaleidoscope of contemporary Chinese views of love, marriage, and life style. I was especially amazed by the candid, openness of the young women, and their bravery to bear public scrutiny. The relentless internet spreads numerous comments on the looks, personality, and value system of the women, sometimes positive and more often negative. A righteous-sounding man even took his opportunity on the stage to scold a girl to tears, because she once said that to sit in a BMW would be more cool than riding a bike. It is not easy to be oneself under such pressure. I recall my twenties in the 1980s, even to place an anonymous personal ad in newspaper was a disgrace. Times have changed.

"If You Are Not Sincere" is not the only matchmaking show in China, however the others are not nearly as popular. Its success largely depends on host Meng Fei’s wit, sensibility, and broad-knowledge. In researching his background, I was surprised to learn he was from my hometown Chongqing. Between high school graduation and success as a TV program host, he had been a low-paid temp doing odd jobs for many years. His story is that rare one of success for a self-learned man.

As of last week, 160-170 thousand applications to participate in the show had queued up from all over China. Meng Fei announced recently that, in response to keen overseas demand, this "fast matchmaking" program is going to be launched in London and other foreign cities as well.

I have seen several overseas Chinese men appear in the program (none with success), but not a single non-Chinese. To those Americans who live in China and are single, would you like to give it a try?